


Pioneers

by hollycomb



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alien Biology, Kid Fic, M/M, Mpreg, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-09-29
Packaged: 2018-10-18 15:40:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 65,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10619985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollycomb/pseuds/hollycomb
Summary: Hux did all right for himself for a while. Then he fell in love.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> CHECK OUT THE TAGS! This was inspired by the recent episodes of Girls. Both in content and in tone, so it's supposed to be funny and OTT. If that tone + the tags interest you, please enjoy!! Listed as part 1/3 because I want to write about this situation five and then another ten years down the line, but this is fine to read as a one-shot in the meantime. 
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> **

Hux’s finger hovers over the ‘SEND [COVERT]’ command transmission that would order the assassination of Dr. Patrin Wetherkirk. The man is eighty-four years old, retired and living on Bledsoe-9. Hux has not been a patient of Dr. Wetherkirk’s since he was a cadet, and when he was under the doctor’s care he’d had no complaints. 

Now he has a complaint so significant that he’s poised to do murder by proxy. Dr. Wetherkirk, kind and reassuring and surprisingly free of judgment or derision when it came to Hux’s non-human genes, told him that this wasn’t possible. That no child of a half-Dissonian with a full human father could end up in this situation. 

But here Hux is, now undeniably. In this situation.

He exits the assassination command protocol without sending, deletes all related files and shoves his data pad away. With his head in his hands, elbows on his desk, he tries to regain control of his breathing first, then his wildly fluctuating impulse to do something dramatic, violent and irreversible. It’s normally not a challenge to avoid lashing out in ways that are unbecoming of his rank and logically inadvisable, but he’s not normally pregnant. 

As far as Hux is aware, there is no one in the galaxy other than Wetherkirk who knows of his biological complication. Brendol is dead, and when he was alive he never spoke to anyone but Hux of his involvement with a Dissonian servant who seduced him and robbed him blind shortly before leaving him with a child who was far too human to be accepted in the land she escaped to. Hux supposes his mother might be aware that she left behind a child who has the biological capability to harbor life, but he has never spoken to her and doubts she much cares. 

So he’s alone with this, as he has been with most things. The other father is a man Hux slept with on his last shore leave, now on the other side of the galaxy, someone tall and broad and blandly good-looking whom Hux has no interest in ever seeing again. The sex wasn’t even all that satisfying. The man had called him _red_ and had pinched his ass cheek hard enough to leave a bruise, as if to mark Hux like territory. Hux had sincerely considered murder on that occasion as well, but it would have been a logistical mess, and he had been so long without a thorough fuck that he fell asleep directly even after that mediocre one. 

He’s been considering his options for weeks that have now stretched into several months. Terminating the pregnancy would be far too delicate a process to trust to a droid, and it’s difficult to find specialists who will work on patients with genetic profiles as complex as his, let alone one competent enough to also be trusted with the high security clearance involved. The process of discreetly finding such an individual would be itself almost impossibly time consuming, and the risk of lifelong blackmail would thereafter always be hanging over his head, barring a successful murder that he would have to personally perform while in recovery. Droids could probably be counted on to deliver the full-term baby, meanwhile; Hux’s research indicates that a standard surgical process involving an incision in the abdomen would suffice. 

Then there would be the matter of what to do with the infant. Acceptance into the stormtrooper pre-training facility would be easy enough to arrange, with no official link to himself on record, but every time Hux considers this he experiences a nauseous surge of hatred for the idea, and a phantom sensation of increased weight at the seat of his belly, which is neither visibly larger nor heavier than it was two months ago. 

His miserable contemplations are interrupted by a message from the bridge. A shuttle has requested permission to dock. It’s Ren’s. 

“Fuck,” Hux says. He feels as if he’s speaking to someone who will agree. To the baby? Certainly not. He grants permission for Ren’s shuttle to dock with the _Finalizer_ and stands, telling himself that if Ren didn’t sense and remark upon his complex genetic makeup in all the years they spent fucking and fighting and sharing a bed, he won’t do so now. 

But Ren told him something once about life and the Force. Hux had been half-listening at best and can’t recall the details. It was to do with the sharpest Force senses centering around the end and the beginning of life. Maybe Ren was only spouting shit, as he so often did when they were together. Maybe he’ll take one look at Hux and laugh. Regardless, it’s none of his business. Ren has been gone more than a year, doing his mystical duties under Snoke’s command and answering to no one else in the Order. Hux has moved on, from Starkiller’s destruction and otherwise. He’s grown. 

He touches his stomach as he comes to the front door of his quarters, scowling. Perhaps he’ll go directly to his office and avoid contact with Ren. It’s possible Ren has lost all interest in getting under Hux’s feet in the old ways. Ren has completed his training now, presumably. Surely that has changed him. Certainly they have no reason to prop each other up and tear each other down the way they did when they were younger. The galaxy at large has taken over in that department, for both of them. Whatever they once had was so small and feels so far away now. 

And still Hux is standing in place, staring at the door that leads out to the main hallway and unable to move, because it also feels suddenly much too close. 

**

Hux only manages to avoid Ren for three hours, barely able to think about anything but the distracting hum of his presence onboard. He’d forgotten how intrusive it can be when Ren is freshly returned after a long absence. When he’s unable to ignore his need for a fresher after hiding in his office for most of his shift, Hux marches toward the nearest one, keeping his eyes down and feeling hunted. As he rounds a corner he nearly crashes into a wall of black that seems to emanate an angry heat. It’s Ren: masked, hulking, standing in his way. 

“Ah, you’re back,” Hux says, feigning casual acceptance as he stares up into Ren’s new mask: identical to the last one, except that the dents are in different spots. “Has Snoke given you any instruction that I need to know about?” 

Ren says nothing. He’s seething, his shoulders moving with heavy breaths that crackle through his vocoder when he exhales. 

“Have you taken a vow of silence?” Hux asks. He can feel his face heating. Worse, he can feel Ren moving through him in the old way: seeking the truth of him with the Force, giving himself time to gather intel while Hux grimaces against the intensity of this examination.

“What is this,” Ren says, growling behind the words. 

“I don’t understand the question,” Hux says, though he’s afraid he does. 

“You-- What happened--” Ren steps back, and there’s something like real fear in the gesture, as if he just realized that Hux has explosives strapped under his greatcoat. Ren looks down at Hux’s knees and then back up to his face. “There’s a--” he says, gloved hands twitching. “You’re--” 

“Don’t say it!” Hux hisses, holding up a gloved finger. “It’s none of your concern.” 

“What, but-- How--” 

“It’s not yours, obviously! And if you have even a modicum of nostalgic concern for me you’ll pretend you don’t know about it and move on with your own life.” 

“Who?” Ren asks, pronouncing this word as if it’s been punched out of him when Hux tries to walk away. 

“Nobody. Someone I’ll never see again.” Hux looks up and down the hallway, relieved to see that it’s empty as usual. Guards at both ends keep random passerby away from his office. 

“Hux,” Ren says when he takes another step away. 

Hux doesn’t turn back. “What?” 

He feels Ren’s attention on him again: a particularly sharp scan, Ren trying to make sense of what he’s encountered, checking and rechecking his initial impressions. There are sensations beyond confusion and mild horror mixed in with Ren’s curiosity, and Hux experiences an old familiar pride at being able to read Ren, too, when they’re connected like this. Ren is feeling something dangerously close to sympathy for Hux. There’s a protective edge to it that makes Hux’s lip curl up. 

“Stay out of it,” Hux says, half turning to bite this out from over his shoulder. 

Ren says nothing more, but Hux can feel Ren’s attention on him like a blaster’s guide-light even after he’s turned the corner. In a rush of discomfort he remembers his intense need to piss and grits his teeth in regret when he realizes that he’s already passed the fresher on this hall. He keeps going until he’s made it all the way to the one in his private quarters, where he makes an undignified noise of pained relief as he empties his bladder, settling his palm over his gut in a kind of apologetic gesture as he does, as if his body isn’t entirely his own anymore. 

**

For two days, Ren stalks Hux indiscreetly but also keeps his distance, lurking on the bridge during Hux’s shifts and appearing suddenly whenever Hux’s presence is required in other public spaces. As usual where Ren’s presence is concerned, and even after all this time, Hux is chiefly annoyed but also somewhat buoyed by the attention. Hux was always fond of the idea of holding someone who wields such great power in his thrall. His success at actually doing so was mixed; Ren is fickle, and when the Force called out to him he would drop Hux like an afterthought and dash off to do whatever Snoke required of him. But when Ren wanted something from Hux, he burned like a beacon, and Hux happily warmed his ego by that particular heat. 

This is different. Ren feels sorry for him at best, overcome by disgusted fascination at worst. Hux is not flattered by Ren’s concern and doesn’t feel empowered by the glow of Ren’s interest. He feels like he’s being monitored for some weakness that Ren intends to exploit. There’s no other explanation for Ren keeping just out of Hux’s reach as he watches him move about the ship. 

“I need to speak with you,” Ren says when Hux emerges from his quarters to accept a delivery of personal sundries from a droid. Ren is standing right behind the droid, looming like a thunderstorm ready to engulf a quiet countryside, as ever. 

“Has Snoke sent you?” Hux asks hopefully, hugging the sundries package to his chest as the droid flees the scene. He hasn’t had any transmissions from Supreme Leader for weeks.

“Snoke is unaware of this-- Issue.” 

“Which issue?” Hux frowns, already getting hot around his collar, and not in the fun way that once preceded sex. “Is it to do with the strike on Grantif?” 

“What the hell do you think? I’m coming in.” 

Hux steps out of the way, not interested in having this conversation in the open doorway. It’s strange to have Ren in his room again, away from the eyes of potential onlookers, and strange to watch Ren remove his helmet. Hux’s heart starts to hammer as he watches Ren toss his matted hair back with a flick of his chin. The pinch of Ren’s brow tugs at the scar that’s now slashed across his face. It’s fainter than Hux expected, and thinner. Hux treated it with bacta pads himself in the aftermath.

“Your mother wasn’t human,” Ren says. 

“She was half-human. I’m surprised you’re just now picking up on this. I assumed you had thoroughly insinuated yourself into every crevice of my mind years ago.” 

“You have to go looking for something. It’s not a free for all. There has to be a thread of suspicion already. I had no reason to think-- I mean. You look human. Feel human.” 

“I consider myself human, if you care to know my opinion on the matter. But I also have this-- Biological feature, through my mother’s contribution. I was told it was dormant. The doctor who said so was wrong, apparently.” Hux has considered that the pregnancy might spontaneously terminate at any time. The idea makes him dizzy with dread, and he tells himself this is because he might die from the complications along with the baby and not because he particularly wants to bring this infant into the galaxy. “What do you care?” he asks when Ren just stares at him, mouth tight. “The gestation period is the same as that of a human’s, so you can rest assured that you’re not responsible.” 

“Regardless,” Ren says, lifting his chin. “I’m your co-commander, and your romantic partner has abandoned you.” 

“He didn’t _abandon_ me, and there was nothing romantic about it. I didn’t want anything to do with him after we fucked, I was on shore leave--” 

“Regardless,” Ren says again, more sharply. “He is not here to help. And I am.” 

Hux scoffs. “Help with what? Infant care? You’re an expert?” 

“I looked after my foundling cousin quite often as a boy.”

“They had you changing diapers in the Republic? No wonder you slaughtered your way out of there.” 

Ren takes two swift, heavy steps forward, eyes darkening. Hux gives him a dry stare and holds his ground, unimpressed. 

“You need me,” Ren says when he’s close enough that Hux can smell the protein sludge he gulps down for almost every meal. “This is massive, Hux. It’s not something you can keep in the corner of your rooms with a droid to tend to it.” 

“Oh no? That’s how Brendol kept me.”

“Yes, that much I’ve sensed. You’re going to foist that on the next generation?”

“Why should you care?” Hux’s face is blazing now. “And why should my upbringing be something you went looking for, according to your claims about needing a thread of inquiry?” 

“Why do you think.” 

“I can’t possibly imagine.” He can, he did, but he’s spent the past year reminding himself that hoping Kylo Ren truly cared for him in some capacity beyond the integrity of his tight arsehole was an even bigger mistake than his miscalculations with Starkiller’s design. “If you really expect me to believe you’re going to take an interest in my child’s upbringing beyond this whim you’re currently indulging, you must think I’m the biggest fool in the Order.” 

“Maybe you are, since you think you can continue serving adequately as General while looking after a child with only the help of droids.” 

“Adequately!” 

Ren grabs Hux by his shoulders and breathes into his face. He’s angry, probably more that Hux let someone else fuck him than anything else, even after Ren left without a goodbye and without laying a hand on Hux for months prior to the disasters that separated them. Hux regrets it, too, but what’s done is done, and he has entertained a few late night fantasies about having an heir, someone who looks up to him and is open to learning all he knows, and he has told himself, maybe, once or twice, that he would be kinder to the child than Brendol was to him. But only just. Brendol wasn’t wrong to preach that there is no room for softness in the Order. 

“Together,” Ren says, his eyes burning down into Hux’s. “We could raise your child to be strong, having learned from all the mistakes and missteps we endured from our guardians.” 

“What exactly would you get out of raising my child? He won’t have the Force. You can’t hand him over to your master.” 

“I would never--” Ren breaks off there and frowns. “I desire allies on your side,” he says, squeezing Hux’s shoulders in a way that Hux struggles not to find arousing. “You’ve always known this.” 

“Have I? Sometimes I feel like all I’ve ever known about you is that you like fucking my arse and sucking on my nipples.” 

Hux shouldn’t have said that. The sensation of being overheated spreads. Ren exhales in a choppy rush and looms closer, his belt pressing against the box of sundries that is wedged between their bodies, keeping them apart. 

“I became involved with you in a time of great confusion,” Ren says. “Prior to the completion of my training. Now I am stronger, and I’ve gained real confidence in the wake of past failures. I have the freedom to choose allies of my own.” 

“We’re already allies, as you said, we’re co-commanders--” 

“I want it to be deeper than that. I want to raise your child as if he was mine, too.” 

“Well, you can’t, because he isn’t! Is it-- That is-- Why do you say ‘he’? Can you tell already?”

“You said ‘he’ before I did.” 

Ren smiles a little, at the corner of his lips. Hux scowls. 

“I can’t even imagine it,” Hux says. “You with an infant. The very suggestion is absurd.”

“I might say the same about you.” 

“Why? I’m extremely dependable, and I helped design the nursery program for our future stormtroopers--” 

“Yeah, exactly.” 

“What do you mean by that?”

Ren groans and releases Hux’s shoulders. For a while they just stare at each other, Hux reeling from the proximity of Ren and alternating between wanting to collapse against the familiar heat of his chest and to kick him in the balls for leaving without a word, as if Hux meant nothing, and for now attempting to stake some claim on Hux’s unborn child. As if it’s that easy; as if Hux has been sitting obediently in place all this time, awaiting Ren’s return.

“Why did it never happen with us?” Ren asks. He glances down at Hux’s belly. “I came inside you-- A lot.” 

Hux’s mild scowl becomes a full-on glower. “Yes, I remember. I can only assume this individual I slept with on shore leave has recessive Dissonian genes like I do. It’s not uncommon in certain parts of the galaxy.” 

“What does your doctor think?” 

“I haven’t got a doctor. No one can know about this. You know how people are in the Order. Anything that sets you apart is considered a weakness, and I-- I can’t afford to show even the slightest weakness, not until I can claim a post-Starkiller victory of significance.” 

“So what are you going to do when the baby comes? Smuggle diapers onboard through the black market?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I used unorthodox methods to get supplies aboard.” 

Hux goes over to the room’s side table and sets the box of sundries down. It opens when he applies his fingerprint to the lock mechanism, and he unfolds the duraplast lid. Ren hesitates for a few petulant seconds before coming to Hux’s side to survey the box’s contents. Only then does Hux register another familiar scent, beyond the protein shake that’s always on Ren’s breath and the hint of something burned that lingers on his clothing: this is softer, also tart, a little bit like sun-baked stone but not so clean. It’s the smell of Ren’s skin, his hair, the warmth and closeness of him. It’s been months since Hux was this close to another person. The man who impregnated him mostly smelled like booze, but once on top of Hux he’d also had a wildly appealing musk that made Hux feel heady and reckless. Probably some pheromone. Something that the Dissonian in Hux recognized. 

“Are these helping?” Ren asks after he’s examined the packets of vitamins and herbal supplements inside the box. 

“Yes,” Hux says. “The nausea was what made me catch on. I had a droid do a mediscan. Then I dismantled it, just in case.” 

“The scanner or the droid?”

“Both.” He also put their parts out an airlock.

“And these?” Ren says, lifting out a package of massari gummies.

Hux shrugs. “I ate them when I was a boy. Something put me in mind of them recently--”

“You had a craving.” 

Ren has the nerve to smile. 

Hux recoils. “Is this some kind of fetish for you?” he asks, stepping backward. Ren has an unsettling light in his eyes that Hux associates with possessive behaviors after sex. Hux once interpreted them as evidence of Ren’s fondness for him: an unwillingness to let Hux escape the bed for a shower, humid kisses all over Hux’s cheeks as they both regained their breath, soft fingers through Hux’s hair. Ren likes caring for things, but only in small doses. Within the hour he’d be back to gutting Hux with some thoughtless comment, such as describing his performance as General as merely _adequate_.  

“I’ve had time to think,” Ren says. He’s staring down at the packet of gummies, pressing his thumb against the squishy shapes inside. “Things have changed for us both. This feels right.” 

“What does?”

“You being-- The idea of-- A child. A family, but on our terms. We share the same goals.” 

“Not entirely,” Hux mutters, trying not to think too specifically of how much he’d like to get rid of Snoke and his influence on the Order, not to mention his influence on Ren, who will be singing a different tune the next time Snoke cracks a whip over his head and demands he come running. 

“You might be surprised,” Ren says, also muttering.

“By what?”

Ren shakes his head and sets the gummies down. 

“And how could you tell I’m expecting?” Hux asks, before Ren can make more cheap promises. “You said you have to be looking for something when you go scavenging around in people’s minds, that you need to start with some thread of questioning. Surely you weren’t seeking to find-- This.” 

“I came back because I sensed you needed me.” Ren swallows after he’s hurried this out. “So. When I encountered you, I investigated the source of that need. And I sensed the baby’s life force.”

Ren seems flustered by this confession. He ducks his gaze away from Hux’s and puts his helmet back on. 

“I don’t need you,” Hux says, thrown sideways by hearing the word _life force_ in that context. “I’ve got it all under control.” 

“Have you.” The vocoder makes this sound sarcastic.  

“Yes. I’ve determined that it’s too dangerous to try to terminate, but if I manage to carry to term I’ll have a standard delivery procedure performed by droids, and then-- And then I’ll raise the child as my apprentice. I may have to do more work from my rooms, but so be it. Snoke rules comfortably enough from his hidden fortress, via hologram.” 

“You would model yourself after Snoke?” 

Ren sounds infuriated by the suggestion. Perhaps it’s a kind of sacrilege. 

“Only in the sense that I can command the ship from the privacy of my rooms if necessary,” Hux says. “It wouldn’t be difficult to fake an illness that requires quarantine.”

“You just said yourself, any sign of weakness is dangerous for you right now. A General ruling from his sick bed? You’d have a mutiny on your hands within days.” 

“Mutiny is the stuff of Republic culture! That would never happen in the Order.” 

“Don’t lie to me,” Ren says, stalking closer. “You know this plan is doomed to fail. You can’t hide the child, not forever, and you wouldn’t need to if we told everyone it belongs to me. It’s not so outlandish to suggest we had him together, intentionally, to combine my powers in the Force with your-- Leadership abilities.” 

“I have desirable qualities beyond my ability to lead!” 

“Yes.” Ren takes another step toward Hux. “You do.” 

“Don’t menace me with sexual innuendo. That’s all over.” 

“Why, because you’re pregnant?” 

“Just get out!” Hux can’t stand being called that, least of all by Ren. “This is my project, alone. You have no claim to it. Sorry your seed wasn’t special enough to knock me up, but I’m not going to pretend to have a Force-using child for the sake of your ego.” 

“If people believe I’m the child’s father, he’ll be protected.” 

“What, by you? I seem to recall you being the one who needed rescuing, last time we saw each other.” 

“You’ll be a shitty parent,” Ren says, and he turns to go.

This statement is almost funny, delivered through a crackling vocoder by an overgrown child whose parents never saw fit to beat the entitled tantrums out of him. 

But Hux isn’t laughing when Ren is gone. He’s shaking all over, with rage and delayed shock at Ren’s interest in his predicament. Like everything Ren does, it’s only an impulse: a whim, not something that can be built upon. 

Hux goes to the box of sundries and digs out the packet of gummies, crinkled by Ren’s clumsy hands. He doesn’t think of those hands on him, how they might soothe the tension that has ached between his shoulders since he accepted his fate as a person with an occupied womb. Ren thinks he’ll be a shitty parent? Ha. Ren would be the shittest of all time. Hux doesn’t need his help. He’s never needed anyone. 

“Don’t worry,” he mumbles, feeling mad as he settles his hand over his stomach. “I’ll provide for you in all respects. No Republic-tainted guardians will have any say in the matter.” 

He eats the gummies, takes a supplement for his back pain and stretches out in bed with glass of fizzing vitamin water that will help him sleep. He got all of these things for himself, and made sure they came onboard undetected, off the record. He’ll show Ren. He can do this according to his own design. 

He falls asleep worrying that Ren won’t be around long enough to be shown anything of the sort. And why should this worry him? It shouldn’t. Doesn’t. It’s irrelevant and a waste of his concern, like everything to do with Ren.

**

Two things persist unexpectedly over the weeks to come: Ren’s presence onboard the _Finalizer_ and Snoke’s lack of communications or even instructions delivered by Ren. Hux begins to worry that Ren is withholding some essential command information just for the sake of avoiding him, which would be characteristic of Ren’s disastrously emotional decision making process. Hux gathers himself, for the sake of the Order, and seeks Ren out after two weeks of hearing nothing from him. 

“I need to know the status of your current assignment from Supreme Leader,” Hux says when he finds Ren in the officer’s gym, his massive arms coated in a sheen of sweat as he grunts through a series of push-ups. Ren paused only briefly when he sensed Hux’s approach and is either pretending to ignore him or determined to finish his reps before conversing. Hux is tempted to sit on Ren’s back, which he once did for fun and at Ren’s invitation. Hux had laughed as Ren trembled through ten push-ups beneath his weight, swearing that he wasn’t using the Force. 

Ren does twenty-five more push-ups while Hux stands staring and waiting, trying not to let his gaze linger on the way Ren’s tank sticks to his broad back or the tendrils of damp hair that have come loose from the ridiculous little bun he always pulls it into while working out. 

“You know you could do this in your room,” Hux says when Ren springs to his feet as if he’s ready for a fight, chest heaving and face flushed. 

“I used the weights,” Ren says. “And the track. And I don’t have a steam room in my quarters.” 

“I’m sure you think you deserve one.” 

“Was there something you needed?” Ren narrows his eyes and uses the Force to swipe a thermos full of water off the ground near the mats. He drinks from it, keeping his eyes on Hux and somehow managing to swallow theatrically, with more enthusiasm and noise than strictly necessary. 

“I’m sure you heard my question,” Hux says. He sighs, feeling tired and wishing it hadn’t come to this. He’s not too prideful to ask for needed information, but considering everything else he’s dealing with at present it feels inordinately cruel that he’s forced to consult Ren of all people. “Since you’re apparently intent on making me repeat myself, I’ll ask again. What is your current assignment? Why has Snoke stationed you back on the ship? Did he give you some instructions for me that you’ve failed to share? Out of spite, perhaps?” 

Ren throws the water bottle down. Hux flinches, but at least manages not to bring his hand to his still-flat stomach, an annoying instinct that he tries to suppress in the presence of others. 

“I came here because I sensed you were in trouble,” Ren says, speaking in a low, threatening murmur as he moves closer. “Only to find that you had compromised yourself by spreading your legs for some scoundrel on shore leave, and still I offered my help. And now you accuse me of withholding things from you out of spite?”

“Leave all the personal shit out of it, Ren, and tell me what the hell is going on! Why haven’t I heard from Snoke? The strike on Grantif was a success, and I’ve been going forward with plans to occupy the settlements on Blan-Tek, but Snoke has no comment whatsoever? I find that odd, and your presence here is just as troubling, without any stated purpose.” 

“I’ve stated my purpose. Your rejection of it doesn’t change my objective.” 

“You’ve-- What? You’re just here to torment me with offers of help that I don’t need? Snoke granted you leave to do so? I doubt it. If you want to help me, tell me the truth. I’ve known you since you were twenty-three years old. I can tell when you’re hiding something.” 

“Why should I share anything with you? You can do everything alone, I’ve heard.” 

“Ren, this is different!” Hux feels himself getting flustered: not just overheated but overloud, and there’s a shake trying to climb into his voice. He hasn’t been sleeping well; nightmares have rolled in like summer storms, and none of his supplements have been able to blow them away yet. 

“Relax,” Ren says. His eyes soften, and he reaches for Hux. His hands are sweaty on Hux’s jaw, too warm. Hux moves away and takes a deep breath. “Don’t get upset,” Ren says. “I’ve got it under control.” 

“You’ve got _what_ under control?” 

“My current assignment.” 

“You had better not be talking about my--” Hux lets his hand flutter over his belly as he checks to make sure no one has entered this part of the gym. As he suspected, everyone is giving Ren a wide berth. 

“It’s beyond that,” Ren says. He reaches up to adjust his bun, gathering the loose tendrils of hair and emitting a not-unpleasant gust of sweat-heavy body odor when he lifts his arms to do so. “But that’s part of it. Whether you want to accept it or not.” 

“Does Snoke know?” Hux asks through gritted teeth, hating the question so much that he can’t bring himself to meet Ren’s eyes after he’s asked it. 

“Of course not.” Ren sounds offended. “How would he? Do really you think I went running to him with the news of your condition?” 

“Well he is your fucking _master_ , I assume you serve him above all.” 

It’s in the job description, as far as Hux can tell. He startles when he feels Ren’s fingers on his chin, and looks up just as they nudge him to do so. Ren is breathing sharply through his nose, looking desperate. 

“Hux,” he says, whispering. “I made mistakes. We both did. But I’m here for you now. I came back. You’re going to have a child. What else matters?” 

Hux stumbles backward, away from Ren’s touch. Ren sounds like he’s reciting a poem. It’s all so abstract, and Hux’s head is spinning. He wants to explain to Ren that when he considers the child he’s carrying as something that is his alone, the thought is manageable. When he tries to picture Ren at his side, accepting a swaddled infant into his arms when Hux needs a break to take a piss or run the ship or whatever, it seems like an impossible fantasy that will ruin what’s left of both of them. It’s too much. 

“Your thoughts are tormented,” Ren says. 

“Stay out of them,” Hux says. He hurries away, feeling trod upon. Ren tramples over everything in stomping range, even when he’s trying to help. Maybe especially then. 

**

On Hux’s next rest cycle, the nightmares are worse than ever. Snoke is involved, and he’s got his hands around Hux’s throat, squeezing, laughing, then suddenly Hux is across the room and the person that Snoke is attacking is Hux’s child, who is also Ren, or at least looks exactly like him. Hux wakes up sweating, heart pounding, a cramp developing low in his gut. 

“Oh no, please--” he says, without thinking, before he shouts a vocal command that turns the lights up. 

On shaking legs, he leaves the bed. He’s not quite three months along and cramping is unusual, never a good sign, but there’s no point thinking about that. Whatever’s going to happen will happen in due time, and that time could be tonight or months from now. It’s out of his control. This is not the kind of philosophy he normally accepts, but he can’t deny it’s the case now. He tries to take what paltry action he can, at least: fills a glass with water, manages to measure out a dose of vitamin powder with his shaking hand, drinks from the glass in tiny swallows. His eyes are burning and the room feels impossibly cold. 

_Ren_ , he thinks when he closes his eyes, and then he banishes the impulse to summon him, rejecting it before it can be Force-sent, which he was never very successful at doing anyway, at least not intentionally. Did Ren really sense his baby and related distress from wherever Snoke had him stashed? It seems like a convenient lie that Ren came up with after he got here and realized Hux had been with another man. There’s some kind of stale jealousy at work here, nothing more complex or dependable than that. Ren only wanted him again when he scented another man on him, someone who had left his mark in a way Ren couldn’t. Hux thinks of the bruise that man left on his ass and bares his teeth at the memory. When he sets the glass down he realizes with a cooling rush of relief that his stomach cramps have lessened to a mere rumble. He’s hungry. 

Nothing in his room seems appetizing, so he dresses in uniform and attempts to make himself presentable. The greatcoat helps, and the shadow of his command cap over his face. The officers’ lounge is blissfully empty at this odd hour. From the droid on duty he orders the creamed vegetable of the day and a plate of bland noodles with extra butter. He liberally salts both and digs in, washing it down with blue milk. When the lounge’s door opens he hurries to wipe the butter from his lips, but it’s just Ren. 

Ren looks only half put-together himself, maskless and hooded as he makes his way toward Hux’s table. Hux is stuffed but considering a muffin; he can smell the ones they serve with breakfast baking in the attached kitchen. Ren sits down across from him and gives him a searching look from beneath his hood. 

“You were distressed,” Ren says, mumbling. 

“Just a bad dream.” Hux is proud of himself now: he handled it. Under the table, he settles a hand over his belly. “I’m quite all right, as you can see.” 

Ren grunts as if to contest this, but Hux is confident in his self-diagnosis. He rubs his thumb over his stomach, glad as ever for the shield that his greatcoat provides. He doesn’t normally wear it while eating, but he might as well get into the habit of never taking it off in public. 

“I’ve been reading about Dissonian pregnancy,” Ren says, delivering this information with a pitiful look. Like he expects Hux to feel sorry for _him_.

“Shhh!” Hux checks over his shoulder. The droids in the kitchen are busy with their muffin-making. “Not here,” he says, teeth grit.

“Then perhaps back in your quarters.”

“You can’t tell me anything about this condition that I don’t already know! I’ve read the same materials.” 

“I have intuition through the Force. It’s useful.” 

Hux rolls his eyes. He almost feels guilty when Ren’s posture slumps. 

“I’m sorry I said that,” Ren says, tugging the side of his hood against his cheek as if he wants to stifle this apology. “The other day. About your parenting potential.” 

“Ren,” Hux says, pretending not to be pleased with this retraction. “You don’t seem altogether right in the head. I know I’ve said so before, but I’m serious this time. Whatever feelings you’re having about my situation are likely coming from some more general dysfunction. Just know that I’m fine, and please feel some relief that you don’t need to gallantly offer help or what have you. I basically raised myself, even when I still toddling. I can certainly handle the care of someone else on my own, with all the resources I’ve accumulated. I didn’t have them when I was young.” 

“You had Brendol.” 

“Right.” Hux feels his stomach lurch, but it’s not a cramp this time. It’s anger. “And he was more of an obstacle than a resource, as I thought you understood. Excuse me, I need to get some rest before my shift.” 

“Can I come?” Ren asks when Hux stands and throws his napkin down. Hux boggles, but Ren misses it. He’s staring at the tabletop. 

“Are you asking to come to bed with me?” Hux wants that, oh. Not even for sex so much as for the weight of Ren’s body on the mattress beside him, Ren’s contented sighs when he rolls over in his sleep, Ren’s big hand creeping up under Hux’s nightshirt, his knuckles stroking along the length of Hux’s spine. But Hux can’t risk it. He’s in a fragile place, as loathe as he is to admit that. Leaning on Ren only to take a bad fall when he’s suddenly gone again would be disastrous not just for his own health but for that of his child. “Of course you can’t,” Hux says when Ren finally looks up. “That’s in the past, Ren. Let it stay there, where it belongs.” 

“I know I hurt you,” Ren says, lip raising. “But--” 

“Oh, be quiet! You don’t know half as much as you think you do.” 

Hux rushes away, essentially confirming that of course Ren hurt him. He can’t seem to keep a cool head in his current condition, but it’s pointless where Ren is concerned anyway. Hux waits to feel Ren’s lingering attention as he hurries back to his room, and he tugs his greatcoat around himself as if experiencing a sudden chill when he can detect no tendrils of even the faintest Force-sent curiosity from Ren.

So Ren has actually respected his wishes. Good. Excellent. Perhaps he’ll be gone again by the start of the next cycle. 

**

The following month goes well for Hux and for the Order. The effort to occupy Blan-Tek is smoother than they forecasted, with most of the population glad to accept the organized rule of the Order after suffering under warlords and kingpins who’d enslaved them. Several unanticipated raw material resources are discovered once they have stormtroopers on the ground, providing a boon that lifts morale. Hux has been channeling his trouble sleeping into feverish off-shift attempts to design a new weapon, something less grandiose than Starkiller but more effective at this stage of their quest to conquer the galaxy. Some of these designs are judged impractical when he reexamines them after passing out in bed, but a few represent the start of true inspiration, and he feels he’s on the right track. 

Further, and a bigger comfort than he’d like to admit: Kylo Ren is still on board the ship, still skulking around and taking up space at the gym, watching Hux from across the bridge before departing with angry swirls of his cape. He’s also still refusing to say what Snoke is up to, and Hux has had no transmissions from Snoke or any other indications that he has plans of his own for Hux’s fleet. It would be highly against protocol to reach out to Snoke as opposed to the other way around, but Hux has begun to consider it. 

After an especially long shift he stands in front of the mirror in his fresher, trying to determine if his stomach is rounding out yet, or if he’s only gained weight due to the recent increase in his appetite. His comm buzzes on the counter near the sink. It’s a high-security channel, and he’s expecting word from Snoke when he grabs for it, but the message is from Ren.

    _K.REN: I found some obscure literature on Dissonian fertility._

Hux snorts and feels a flush spreading across his cheeks. He’s still waiting for Ren to depart without a word at any moment, but as the weeks pile up he’s also started to entertain a dangerous suspicion that Ren might actually be determined to stay for the duration of Hux’s pregnancy. He responds to the message before he can think better of it, his undershirt sliding back down over his stomach.

    _A.HUX: Anything I should be concerned about?_

The response comes instantly, and Hux feels he should have expected its content.

    _K.REN: So you admit I might actually be able to help you._

    _A.HUX: On second thought, you’re probably just lying to get my attention._

    _K.REN: When have I ever lied to you_

    _A.HUX: Have you heard of lying by omission? Look into it. Goodnight._

He throws the comm down harder than he should have, then inspects the screen for cracks. Cursing Ren, he turns for the tub, a feature of his extra-large fresher that he once never thought he would use. The hot water helps with his muscle aches, and lingering bonelessly within it after his shifts sometimes helps him fall asleep after getting out. He doubts that will be the case tonight, since Ren has just riled him up. 

He’s soaking in the tub and stewing in his lingering rage when he hears what sounds like the front door of his quarters sliding open. He shoots up from his recline and grabs the rim of the tub, panicked until he recognizes Ren’s stomping gait. 

“What the hell are you doing!” Hux cowers in the tub when Ren comes to the open fresher door. He’s wearing his helmet. “Get out!” 

“There’s something I need to tell you.” 

“I’ve heard your fucking apology-- Fine, thank you! Consider the matter dropped!”

“No-- Not that. It’s something I read.” Ren reaches into his robe and pulls out a saggy package wrapped in brown paper. He holds it out as if Hux is going to hop out of the tub and take it from him. 

“What the hell is that,” Hux asks, teeth grit. 

“Sallo fish. Considered good for fetal development in Dissonian culture. They’re hard to find. I had to send two of my Knights to get these for you.” 

“You didn’t _have_ to do anything, I’m perfectly healthy without some fish that-- Ugh, I can smell it from here. Is it rotting?”

“Of course not. It’s just pungent.” 

“Put it in my conservator and get out! Actually, wait,” Hux says when Ren turns to go. “What does Snoke think of you ordering the Knights to pick up nutrients related to my pregnancy?”

There’s a pause that feels significant. Ren looks down at the bag of reeking fish, then up at Hux. 

“The Knights are mine to command.” 

“And they have no objection to you sending them on tasks such as this?” 

“No. They are loyal to me, unquestioning.” 

“That seems rather like an abuse of your power, Ren.” 

“Don’t tell me how to use my own powers!” 

Hux is taken aback by the sudden venom in Ren’s voice. He sinks down into the tub and slides a protective hand over his belly. Ren is breathing louder now, the bag of fish trembling in his fist. 

“I’m naked,” Hux says, reaching down to cover his cock with his other hand. “Have some respect.” 

Ren turns and leaves as if sincerely chastised. Hux doesn’t actually feel bashful about being seen like this; being naked in Ren’s presence still feels normal, even after all their time apart. He listens to Ren open the conservator, throw the fish inside and shut the door hard. 

When Ren is gone, regret spreads through Hux like an uncomfortable mist, damp and cold. He gets out of the tub and puts on a robe after drying and again studying himself in the mirror, searching for changes. It’s strange that he’s come to want to see some sort of physical evidence of his child’s existence, as complicated as that will make his life when he starts to get really big. He suspects this desire has something to do with wanting company in his predicament. He thinks of Ren, frowns and goes out to examine the fish. 

There is something appealing about the fish once he’s unwrapped them, despite the strong smell. His stomach gurgles; he was busy during his shift and only had time for a light lunch. After a cursory search on his data pad yields nothing, he comms Ren, not sure what sort of attitude to expect in response this time. 

    _A.HUX: Do I eat these raw, or…?_

A few minutes pass. Hux brings one of the fish to his lips, something primal in him wanting to bite the little creature’s head off whole. He hears his comm buzz and puts the fish down.

    _K.REN: I was going to offer to prepare them for you in the traditional way. Then you threw me out._

    _A.HUX: Dare I ask what the traditional way entails?_

    _K.REN: For ease of the expecting mother’s digestion they are often ground into a paste with salt and oil._

    _A.HUX: Disgusting. And don’t ever call me that again. I’m this child’s father. His only father._

Predictably, there’s no response. Not wanting to bring the sallo fish to the kitchens for droid preparation, Hux uses a sharp knife to cut one open, pleased to see that the bones have already been removed. Did Ren do that? One of his Knights? He strips off a fleshy section and eats it. The texture is nice, plump with a slight chewiness, and even the scales dissolve on his tongue. He ends up finishing all of the fish in one sitting, and feels pleasantly sleepy and full when he’s done. 

Something about the sensation reminds him of being fucked by Ren. This should perhaps alarm him. He washes his hands and studies his comm, wondering if he should send Ren a thank you message. 

    _A.HUX: How difficult would it be for you to get more of these fish?_

    _K.REN: So you liked them._

    _A.HUX: Assuming I don’t die in the night of food poisoning, yes._

    _K.REN: I would never give you poison._

    _A.HUX: I know, hence my consumption of this gift. That was a joke._

    _K.REN: I’ll never hurt you again. Intentionally or otherwise. I swear it._

    _A.HUX: Ren. Where is Snoke?_

There’s a long wait before the next message. Despite the suspense, Hux is yawning and rubbing at his eyes. He’ll sleep well tonight. 

    _K.REN: What kind of question is that_

    _A.HUX: A logical one, I should think. Never mind, I’m going to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow._

He didn’t really consider that last part of the message before sending it, but now it’s too late to retract.

    _K.REN: Yes. I have more information from my research to share, if you’re not too stubborn to hear it._

Hux rolls his eyes and puts his comm on its charger. He brushes his teeth, washes his face and opens his robe to stroke his hand over his belly again. 

“Did you like those little fish?” he asks, and then he feels so stupid that he goes to bed directly. 

**

The following day, Ren sits at the end of the table where Hux has his evening meal in the officer’s lounge. Hux is in the middle of a discussion with Unamo and Ventra about the risk versus reward of attacking a planet near the Outer Rim where some supplies for a weapon design he’s working on are located. Hux glances at Ren from time to time, watching from the corner of his eye as Ren gulps down one of his protein shakes. Ren seems content to wait until Hux is finished speaking to his officers before interrupting, at least. 

Hux dismisses Umano and Ventra after they’ve decided to table the discussion until further research is done. If any of his inferior officers are wondering about the lack of communication from Supreme Leader, they haven’t let on. Snoke mostly dealt directly with Hux even when hailing him to the chamber for a holocall, and half the time the summons from Snoke came via Ren. Hux glances down to the end of the table when Umano and Ventra are gone. Only a few officers remain in the lounge, talking quietly on the other side of the room. 

Ren looks up from his glass, empty now except for a coating of protein residue. Hux doesn’t mind the taste of the stuff, but only when he’s getting it secondhand, lingering on Ren’s lips and tongue during a kiss. Something shifts in his gut when he thinks about kissing Ren. They’re holding each other’s gaze from opposite ends of the table. Hux stands first, and Ren gets up, too. He looks lost, but also eager and expectant.

“Follow me,” Hux says when he’s close enough to keep this command quiet. Ren puts his helmet on and obeys, trailing Hux through the hallways and back to his quarters. 

There’s a charged feeling between them when they’re alone together, and Hux almost expects Ren to surge forward and kiss him after he’s removed his helmet again. Instead, Ren reaches into his robes and produces a little black sachet with a drawstring tie. 

“Gornish flightwing bone powder,” he says when Hux takes it from him. “Mix it into that stuff you drink at night. According to ancient texts, it helps give the expectant father energy.” 

“The expectant father.” Hux can’t suppress a smirk. Ren has amended his terminology according to Hux’s wishes. “I suppose there are plenty of those in Dissonian culture.” 

“Yes. There are customs recommended for Dissonian men who carry children in particular. I’ve saved all the data for you, if you’re interested in perusing it.”

“Aren’t these just superstitious rituals, really? I’ve read all the accredited medical journals.” 

“What some brush off as superstitious, others know to be true and powerful.” 

Ren’s expression tightens, then relaxes. Hux pockets the powder. 

“You’ve already sent your Knights out on my behalf again?” he says. 

“No. They collected this along with the fish, and some other goods that I requested they find.” 

“How many little presents do I have coming?”

“They’re not presents. I’ve told you, I’m interested in this child’s welfare.” 

“Why?” Something in Hux still curdles, hearing this. The baby is his alone. 

“Because it’s yours,” Ren says. 

An awkward silence descends. Hux feels uncomfortably warm under his clothes, though he’s also longing for a hot bath. 

“Have you experienced prostate sensitivity yet?” Ren blurts, as if this question follows his last statement.

Hux sputters and grows hotter across his chest, the flush rising along his throat and coloring his cheeks. “I’ve always had that,” he says, as dryly as he can. “As you’ll recall.” 

“No-- I know, but I read that it can get particularly sensitive during a Dissonian male’s pregnancy. In need of stimulation, in fact.” 

“You’re making that up.” 

“I’m not. I’ll show you my source material. I’ll go get it right now.” 

Hux waves his hand through the air. “Never mind,” he says. “I’m going to lie down, my feet are swollen. Then I might take my bath. If you want-- That is-- I wouldn’t mind company if you felt like hanging about. But my prostate is perfectly fine without your attention, thank you.” 

Hux’s ass clenches with an involuntarily spasm as he says so. He hasn’t thought about sex much at all since he discovered he was pregnant, or even since that one night stand with the baby’s other father. Trust Ren to needlessly introduce the idea that it might be enjoyable even in his current state. Or perhaps especially. Hux will do his own research on the subject later, if time permits. 

He goes into his room to undress, not sure what Ren will do next, and sets the bone powder on his bedside table with the rest of his bedtime ritual tinctures. They're becoming disordered. He’s been busy, and maybe a bit lazy when it comes to keeping his environs perfectly tidy. When he’s down to just his briefs and undershirt, he stretches out on the bed and reaches for his data pad. At this hour it will be choc full of reports that need his attention. Ren lurks in the doorway. 

“Do I have a bulge yet?” Hux asks, settling his hand over his belly. “I can’t tell if I look any different.” 

“It’s a little-- You look softer.” 

“I fear how bad it will get before the end. At least people are accustomed to seeing me in my greatcoat. But I’m already sweating more than ever.” 

“Can I--” Ren flinches and shifts his helmet to his other hand. “Do you need, uh. Other types of physical stimulation? I know you like having your shoulders rubbed.” 

“You’re just trying to work your way down to my prostate, aren’t you?”

“No!” 

Ren scowls when Hux laughs. Of course he took the bait. 

“Come here,” Hux says. “Put the bloody helmet down, take your robe off. I’m not making any promises, and I don’t want to hear any more from you. But if you’re going to be on my ship, engaged in some kind of unclear mission, you might as well keep me company.” 

Ren moves uncertainly toward the bed. Hux returns his gaze to his data pad and pretends to give the report he’s opened his attention. He wants Ren relaxed and trusting before he broaches the subject of Snoke again. Something has happened, or changed, but Ren is dodgy and Hux has put him on the defensive so far. Even if Ren deserves to be treated that way, or worse, Hux won’t learn anything unless he eases away Ren’s misgivings about confiding in him. 

“I can feel you plotting,” Ren says, pausing in the removal of his boots to give Hux an accusing stare. 

“And what am I plotting, Ren?”

“I don’t know. You’ve been harder to read in recent weeks. The baby’s presence is like static interference. He can’t think the way we do yet. He just feels things, bluntly.” 

Hux hasn’t cried since he was perhaps two or three years old, so it takes him off guard when he feels his eyes blurring over and burning at the corners. He lifts his data pad, completely failing to make the gesture look casual. Ren comes to the bed, puts one knee on the mattress and stares at Hux as if he can’t decide whether to gather him into his arms or offer him more obscure ritualistic cuisine. 

“I’m fine,” Hux says, waving Ren off when he crawls across the bed. “Just. The idea that he’s feeling things. It’s eerie, is all.” 

“My mother--” Ren starts to say, and then he squashes it. He drops onto his back and stares up at the ceiling.

Hux sniffles as quietly as he can and blinks away the haze of tears that threatened to come. He’s had some mood swings, but until now they’ve mostly ranged from annoyed to livid to murderous. 

“What about your mother?” Hux asks, staring at his data pad.

“Nothing. The Force-- She claimed she could feel me, before I was born. Discernable traits, even. I just think it must be strange not to have that. Even I can feel your baby’s presence more clearly than you can.” 

“Like hell! Maybe you can sense a spark of life or whatever, but you don’t know him better than me. How dare you.”

Ren smiles. Hux wants to throw something at him, but only the data pad is available. He tosses it onto the bedside table instead. 

“Where are you going?” Ren asks when Hux leaves the bed. 

“To bathe. Do not disturb me. You’re not invited to this part.” 

As annoying as Ren is, Hux enjoys the idea that he’s out there waiting in the bedroom while he showers. He had planned on a bath, but decides he’s feeling too hot or tired or something for the whole routine, and he keeps his shower quick. When he returns to the bedroom he’s irritated to realize that he’s experiencing a certain amount of anxiety, wondering if Ren will still be there. 

He is, snooping through holo-mapped designs at Hux’s workstation. 

“Make yourself at home,” Hux says, sarcastic, though he’s actually pleased that Ren cares enough to look through his recent work. Hux is proud of it. He’s getting close to something brilliant. 

“This would be incredible if you could make it work,” Ren says, gesturing to Hux’s favorite design. It’s a machine that would disable all spacecraft within a wide range, leaving every Resistance fighter and cruiser useless and free-floating while Hux’s fleet enjoyed protection from the disabler, specially designed shields keeping the weapon’s crippling signal out. 

“It’s a bit of a blunt instrument,” Hux says. “Lacking the majesty of Starkiller. But on a practical scale, if we could install one on every Star Destroyer and keep the enemy from deciphering my immunity method, I think it could win the war once and for all.”  

Ren closes the holo design files and swings Hux’s desk chair around to face the bed. Hux doesn’t protest when Ren watches him go to his bureau and select a pair of underthings: some of the nicer ones, a sleek, black pair he hasn’t worn in a long time. He turns his back on Ren and frowns when he pulls them on and finds they’re a bit tight. 

“Hux,” Ren says. 

“What?” 

“I don’t know. Your ass.” 

Hux glares at him, though he’s also flushing with the compliment, if that’s even what it was. Ren used to worship his arse, with his tongue and cock and fingers and also more spiritually, commenting on it often and sometimes seeming to speak to it directly. 

“Yes, it’s still here,” Hux says, with more bitterness than he intended. He goes to the bed and plants his arse on the sheets, depriving Ren of the sight. Ren joins him in bed as if an invitation to do so is implicit, looking both wistful and mildly hypnotized. He’s taken off his belt and tunic. 

“Are you going to sleep now?” Ren asks when Hux rolls toward him, drawing up his knees like a shield. 

“Not yet. Prepare my vitamin water for me.” Hux waves his hand in the direction of his bedside table. “Add the bone powder, too.” 

Ren hesitates, then seems to remember that he swore to be of service to Hux’s unborn child. There’s no doubt in Hux’s mind that Ren will grow bored of this before long, certainly before the baby comes, but Hux might as well enjoy Ren’s fascination while it lasts. He accepts the fizzing drink from Ren and expects to wince at the taste of the Gornish bone, but it actually elevates the flavor with a bite of salty tang. Ren watches him drink the whole thing before returning to the bed himself. 

“Lights,” Hux says. “Ten percent.” 

He always used to put them at fifteen when Ren fucked him and keeps them at five when he sleeps. This compromise represents his uncertainty about just what the hell is going on here. 

Ren doesn’t seem poised for a seduction, but he does reach across the bed to touch just his fingertips to Hux’s knee. 

“Tell me about your mother,” Ren says. 

“Why?” 

“Because I’m curious. I’ve never met a Dissonian.” 

You’ve met me, Hux thinks, but he’s never felt like one.

“Half-Dissonian,” he says, meaning his mother. “She was beautiful and cold. A con artist, and Brendol was her mark. I never met her.” 

“Of course you met her. You were inside her.” 

Hux grimaces at the phrasing. “You know what I mean,” he says. “I’ve not the slightest memory of her. I didn’t know her as a person. I was only a helpless lump she delivered and dropped into the arms of Brendol, child-rearer extraordinaire.” 

“That’s what Brendol told you. Maybe it’s not true. Maybe she wanted you and he wouldn’t let her have you. The Empire needs children, as they say.” 

“Why don’t you tell me about _your_ mother? And then I can rewrite history according to baseless speculation. You’ll enjoy that, I’m sure.” 

“You know about my mother. Everyone does.” 

“I know her as a General. Not as a mother.” 

“I don’t want to talk about that.” 

“Of course you don’t. But I’m expected to make my childhood memories available to you? Typical.” 

Ren holds Hux’s angry stare and rubs his thumb over Hux’s knee. It’s like an apology, but what about Ren isn’t when he’s not raging or leaving. Hux tries and fails not to shiver with pleasure at the soft touch, at being touched at all. 

“She thought she knew me,” Ren says when Hux’s eyelids have grown heavy. “But she didn’t.” 

He’s talking about his mother. Hux shifts his knee slightly, moving it just a bit closer to Ren, who goes on stroking Hux there until he falls asleep. 

Hux has strange dreams again, but tonight they’re less alarming. He’s eating fruit on a planet he doesn’t recognize, picking it from a tree, and though Ren isn’t present Hux knows that he’s doing this because Ren told him that this fruit will be good for the baby. 

When he wakes, Ren is gone. Hux sits up, hating how this feeling of loss and betrayal is still somehow surprising. Ren never promised he would stay: not last night, not last year. Never, at any point, did he claim he would always be around. 

He did say that he wouldn’t hurt Hux again. Hux hadn’t believed it, but he feels freshly hollowed out by the lie all the same. 

**

Hux waits a week to investigate the situation with his prostate. This hesitation feels like something he’s doing to spite Ren, who continues to haunt Hux’s steps as if he’s waiting for another invitation into Hux’s bed. There haven’t been any more gifts, and Hux has been cold to Ren whenever they interact, despite his plans to get to the bottom of the mystery of Snoke’s lack of contact. He’ll need to butter Ren up to get the truth, but at present he’s still too raw from the memory of waking up to find Ren gone. He can’t fake niceties as well as he’d like to, especially where Ren is concerned. 

Away from Ren, in the sanctity of his room, Hux realizes that he’s not just avoiding sticking his finger up his arse because Ren suggested he might particularly enjoy it right now. He also feels strange about being alone with the baby, technically, and pleasuring himself within the silence of their companionship. He wants to reject the idea that this would be easier with a partner, but he can’t deny that having someone else to do the pleasuring for him would take his mind off the baby’s existence. Of course the baby doesn’t care or know either way, but Hux is overly aware of its presence when he’s alone, especially since he’s developed an embarrassing but insuppressible habit of muttering little observations and questions while resting his hand over his belly. Though he knows he’s being stupid, it feels wrong to even tease his fingers over his cock through his sweatpants. 

In the days that follow his initial attempts to get past this, he is hyper-aware of his arse: every twitch and point of contact when he sits, and the sensation of all his muscles, arse included, being too tight. Everything seems to be pinching in around him. Meanwhile Ren hovers almost constantly in his peripheral vision, brooding. Ren doesn’t understand what he’s done wrong, but he’s too prideful to ask. If their relationship had an epitaph, that would be it. 

“You’ve been toiling,” Ren says when he corners Hux near the commissary, where Hux had been planning to complain about the delayed delivery of his latest package of above-the-board sundries. “At what, I can’t be sure,” Ren says when Hux just stares up at his mask, unwilling to give Ren so much as a scowl. “But I sense that I can help.” 

“You must need to adjust your antenna, because you actually can’t.” 

“Why do you reject my contributions? You should think of your child above your own pride.” 

“Pride!” Hux mashes his lips together, regretting the volume of his voice. He tries to move away, but Ren steps sideways, blocking him. “It’s exactly for the sake of my--” Hux glances back to make sure the commissary window is still empty. “Of my child,” he says, jaw clenched, “That I’m adhering to self-preservation rather than reckless indulgence. You were only ever the latter.” 

“Call me whatever you want, but admit that you need me.” 

“Never!” Hux shoves Ren away, embarrassed and then furious when he hears how loud Ren has pushed him to get, again. The clerk has come to the window of the commissary. Hux leaves without lodging his complaint. He makes a mental note to penalize the clerk for not having been attentive to his post, but by the time he gets back to his quarters his head feels fuzzy and he needs to lie down for a moment before doing that or anything else. He glances at the Gornish bone powder on the bedside table, wondering if he should take a little more for energy. Ultimately he rejects the idea; Ren’s parlor tricks will likely bring him to ruin if he counts on them to actually help, like Ren himself. 

That night, the dreams of being fucked by Ren begin. 

Hux is accustomed to them, but he’d thought he’d trained his mind not to have them, or at least not to remember them as vividly as he does when he wakes. Now they’re back, and differently: in the old days, and particularly when Ren was still lurking about Starkiller base but ignoring Hux suddenly and without any discernable reason, Hux would dream that Ren stormed into his quarters or office and took him hard, like a dam bursting. Hux would moan encouragement and sometimes even babble gratitude in these dreams, asking what had taken Ren so long, why he’d waited. Ren never answered. Hux often woke up with sticky sheets. 

Now the dreams are of softer, slower sex, the kind they didn’t often have unless they were completely exhausted and taking as much comfort as pleasure in the act. There was a warm familiarity that had matured from what was once only excitement, a sense of trusting surrender, and it’s there in the dreams. Ren is on top of Hux in almost all of them, all around him and huddled close like a tent, his robe billowing around them both. He fucks Hux with leisurely, gentle thrusts, maybe thinking of the baby. Hux whispers delirious praise, freely offering things he would never actually say. 

“You always fucked me so well,” Hux says in one dream, murmuring this against Ren’s cheek with drowsy worship. “ _So well_ , Ren, ah--” 

“I know,” Ren says. The close, low rumble of his voice makes Hux come-- in the dream, and also in reality. He wakes up panting, his cock still throbbing with aftershocks. 

Afterward, in the shower, Hux is just muggy enough from the remaining haze of the dream to lean his arm onto the shower wall, hide his face against it and finally reach back to feel his way down through his crack and to his hole, probing tentatively with one fingertip. He’s rattled enough by the dream to feel almost as if he’s checking to make sure he wasn’t just actually fucked open nice and slow by Ren, that he isn’t dripping and loose. 

He’s tight, untouched there since maybe a week or two after that one night stand, whenever he tried to recapture the feeling alone and was too depressed by the effort to do it again. He’d always depended on Ren in this area: Ren was shameless and filthy and Hux had to only arch his back and get what he wanted. Hux groans and pounds his fist against the shower wall, all of his nerves lit up just from the sensation of his own cautious fingertip rubbing circles around his rim. His spent cock twitches hopefully and he humps the wall a few times, feeling crazed. 

The haze lingers through his shift, and Hux goes tense when he sees Ren on the bridge. He returns to his quarters for his mid-shift meal and uses this time to stuff a sweet, meat-filled bun into his mouth while he scrolls for information on his data pad with his other hand, feeling feverish. After some poking about he’s able to confirm what Ren told him, more or less: heading into the middle stages of pregnancy, most Dissonian males experience an increased sex drive and heightened sensitivity in erogenous zones. 

So it’s a scientific fact and not Hux failing to resist Ren’s temptations. He closes the data files, clears his history, eats a second sweet bun and plots. His course of action can be two-fold: satisfy physical urges in order to keep his mind clear for duty, and seduce Ren into discussing the situation with Snoke while they share a pillow, possibly in the post-sex hours when Ren sometimes wants to whisper together as if they’re boys sharing secrets in a blanket fort. Republic-bred nonsense; Hux never should have been taken in by it, but at least now he can use it for tactical purposes. He sends Ren a comm message before returning to his shift:

    _A.HUX: Meeting at 22:00, my quarters. If you’re agreeable, bring an offering._

He puts his comm away, washes the sweet bun residue from his fingers and brushes his teeth. By the time he returns to the bridge, he’s got a new message from Ren. 

    _K.REN: What sort of offering_

Hux tries to ignore the message. Then Ren shows up on the bridge and stares at him through the mask, keeping his distance but making no pretense of being here for any purpose other than to torment Hux with his proximity. After busying himself with a lieutenant who requested a coordinate consultation, Hux deigns to reply. 

    _A.HUX: Something savory and salty, if you’ve got it._

He might be imagining things, but he thinks he hears Ren huff a sort of gut-punched laugh as he reads his comm. 

    _K.REN: I may have something that fits that description._

Hux doesn’t respond. He’s been foolish enough already, but at least he’ll get what he’s after, eventually. If he has to share his bed with Ren again in order to do it, so be it. At least he knows now not to expect the arrangement to last very long. Hux only needs it to persist until he gets the information he needs. It’s all for the good of the Order: even the baby, whom Hux has begin to think of as a future Emperor, perhaps taking Hux’s place on the throne someday. Hux is unsurpassed when it comes to weapon design, and his child could be the real jewel in the Order’s arsenal if he’s raised properly, which of course he will be, in Hux’s care. No weapon is more valuable than an excellent leader, after all.

Allowing this to preoccupy his thoughts puts Hux back in mind of Snoke and his current status. There are two options, as Hux sees it: Snoke has disappeared for some reason, possibly having to do with Ren, or he’s sent Ren back here to evaluate the situation in preparation for a surprise attack that would put the Force users solely in power. While Snoke certainly always planned to get rid of Hux, for a long time he also needed him: Hux was the face of the Order, also its most valuable weapons engineer. Snoke saw the value of Starkiller above all and therefore wanted to keep its architect close at hand. Hence the promotion, and the fact that Snoke let Hux give grand speeches and put his face on recruitment posters. It wasn’t as if Snoke’s gnarled, obtuse presence would inspire confidence in Order personnel who had grown up with the glory of the Empire. Hux had always been waiting for Snoke to try to get rid of him, and had also been waiting for an idea about how to thwart his efforts. For a long time, Ren seemed like Hux’s best bet in that regard, but Hux never could pry Ren’s true loyalties from Snoke’s grip. All the arse worship was just that: sex, a diversion, nothing that ever kept Ren at Hux’s side when he was needed most. 

Hux keeps this firmly in mind when Ren arrives at his quarters that evening. This encounter has established parameters, and it’s a limited engagement, strategic and logical. Hux has bathed, and in cleaning himself thoroughly he managed to become aroused to the point that his cock isn’t entirely soft when Ren stalks toward him in the front room. Hux is wearing baggy sweats and a sleeveless tank that sags over his chest. He hasn’t combed his hair, which is still damp from his bath. He doesn’t want Ren to think he made much of an effort. 

“I brought you something,” Ren says. 

“Good. Show me.” 

Hux half expects Ren to take out his cock then and there. Instead, Ren removes the helmet, sets it on the floor and reaches into his robe to produce a colorful packet of something that looks like it could be purchased at a junk food stand in a trashy space station. Hux is almost ready to take this as an insult when he recognizes the packaging and gasps. 

“Are those--” 

“Rocket Snaps.” Ren grins when Hux hurries forward to grab the packet and examine it more closely. “I read that they were big with ex-Imperial children after the war.” 

“Yes, they--” Hux is so flustered by holding this object in his hand that he has to gather himself before continuing, swallowing some of his boyish enthusiasm down. “They were the only treat we had, really,” he says, lifting his chin and attempting to appear stoic. “They were stashed aboard ships with the emergency rations, because of their long shelf life. Imperial leftovers, like us. I’m sure they’re not manufactured anymore. Where did you find these?”

“I have my ways. Crack them open, let’s see if they’re still edible.” 

“Later,” Hux says, though his mouth is watering. He so loved these things as a boy, and they are indeed salty and savory. Ren must have had those gummies in mind when he sought these out, rather than some folk wisdom about the health of an expecting parent. Cravings, he’d called them. Hux sets the snacks aside. He doesn’t like to eat directly before sex. Ren might know this about him if he’d ever paid any attention. “I’m sure you know what else I require from you,” Hux says when he meets Ren’s eyes again.

“Yes.” 

Hux can see Ren just barely managing to swallow down an _I told you so_. He’s wise to judge that it wouldn’t get him far right now. 

“Follow me, then,” Hux says, turning toward the bedroom. “I’m on a strict sleeping schedule, for my health.”

“This will help you sleep,” Ren says, hurrying after him. 

Hux rolls his eyes, though he suspects Ren is right. It might at least stave off the sex dreams for a while. 

When he clambers onto the bed and watches Ren undress, Hux thinks of their first time together. It was nothing like this: not planned, not in the privacy of one of their rooms, and neither of them took the time to undress. It was frantic, almost like an extension of the fight they’d been having when Ren grabbed the back of Hux’s hair and kissed him to shut him up. Hux had known it was coming, that Ren wanted him and that, like Hux, Ren felt like he was unraveling from it after all their years of dancing around each other. Still, he’d been taken off guard by how much he liked Ren’s big hand on his throat, and by how good it had felt to spread his legs and moan when he wanted it that much, enough to lose himself to it, which had never happened before. 

“You’re thinking about the past,” Ren says. He sounds pleased. He’s tugged off everything but his leggings and is peeling those down slowly, as if he expects Hux to savor the sight. 

“I’ll get the lube,” Hux says, annoyed by Ren’s posturing, his mind-reading, everything. 

In the fresher, Hux is embarrassed to realize that this is the same bottle of lube he used the last time Ren fucked him here, over a year ago. He hopes that Ren won’t mystically sense this, and gives himself a stern, judgmental look in the mirror.

 _You’re about to get fucked, Armitage_ , he thinks, fingers squeezing in around the bottle of lube. _It’s going to feel as good as it always did with him, and you’re going to make some unfortunate noises at an extreme volume, but that’s as far as any of this goes. No hand-holding in the aftermath. No drifting off to sleep with some kind of pathetic, subconscious belief that he’ll be there when you wake. Keep to the plan._

After giving himself this mental pep talk, Hux returns to the room. Ren is nude, semi-erect, and reclining on the bed in a way that is probably supposed appear casual. Seeing this, it occurs to Hux that Ren likely hasn’t fucked anyone since leaving him, and that he might have been as lax in the self-care department as Hux has been recently. It can’t have been satisfying to masturbate in Snoke’s fortress. Hux saw it only briefly, when ferrying Ren there after Starkiller was destroyed, a trip they both endured in horrible, heavy silence. Snoke’s residence was damp and decrepit, a tomb-like palace fit for a ghoulish king. 

“Make room,” Hux grumbles when he climbs onto the bed, shoving Ren over. Ren’s gaze sweeps down along the length of Hux’s body and then up again, hungry and unashamed. Hux passes him the lube and sits back against the pillows, red-faced and strangely nervous. 

“Have you touched it yet?” Ren asks. He’s hovering close, sitting up on his elbow. He smells freshly cleaned and seems nervous, too. 

“Touched it?” Hux says, knees twitching back together when he attempts to spread them like he used to for Ren. 

“Your prostate.” 

“No, I-- I’ve been busy.” 

Ren laughs. Hux shoves him, chewing down the impulse to laugh, too. 

“You’re so cute,” Ren says. 

Hux recoils. It’s not the kind of thing they ever said to each other, and he can’t imagine Ren has ever said this about anything before now. Ren seems undisturbed by Hux’s reaction, or maybe pleased to see that he’s alarmed.

“Just get to work,” Hux snaps, not even sure why he feels insulted. Brendol used to torment him for being underweight and he’s heard more stupid comments about his hair color than he cares to recall. He’s never liked the way he looks, but he used to bask in the way Ren looked at him: like this, as if Hux is a source of light and warmth after too much cold, lonely wandering in the dark. 

“Can I kiss you?” Ren asks, hanging back like he already knows the answer.

“Absolutely not.” 

“You assume I meant your mouth.” Ren pops the lid off the lube and drags the tip of the bottle along his finger. His signature move, perhaps; he’s always done it this way when they start out calmly rather than in a frantic rut. “Maybe I want to kiss you here,” Ren says when he brings his slicked finger down between Hux’s legs, easing them apart more widely with his other hand. 

“Ah,” Hux says, watching. He’s already breathing harder, and his cock is nearly full just from the building pressure of anticipation. His knees flinch when Ren’s slick fingertip begins to circle his hole. Hux moans and lets his head fall back, his shoulders relaxing onto the pillows behind him. That’s it, that’s _it_ , already-- everything in him feels lit up and reawakened, and he’s grinding his hips down, eyes closed and mouth open. 

“Fuck,” Ren says. “Hux. You need it so much.” 

“Tell me something I don’t fucking know-- _ahh_ , yes, oh--” 

Hux takes two handfuls of the sheets when Ren’s finger slides into him, slowly but not tentatively. This is territory that Ren knows well; he’s an expert in this particular activity. Hux whimpers when he feels Ren getting close to his prostate, his hole clenching up in almost fearful anticipation around Ren’s finger. When Ren makes contact with it, Hux screams and sits up as if electrocuted, blindly grabbing for Ren, needing something to hold onto. 

“Shit,” Ren says, easing off. “Sorry, shit, are you--” 

“Again,” Hux says. He’s drooling onto Ren’s shoulder, curled around his arm, shaking all over. “Fuh, fuck, Ren--” 

“Are you sure?” Ren still has his finger halfway in, somewhat awkwardly now that Hux is sitting up and clutching at him. “That was-- You sounded like you were in pain.” 

“Did I?” Hux shakes his head and lets his lips bump thoughtlessly against Ren’s jaw. He’s panting, still thrumming from the intensity of that touch. He’d thought it would be-- He’s not sure what he thought, now. “It felt like dying and coming back to life at the same time,” Hux says, digging his fingertips into Ren’s arm. His bicep is so fucking solid, there’s almost no give. Hux wants to hump his cock into the crook of Ren’s elbow, or really against any part of him. 

“Maybe it’s too intense,” Ren says. He glances down at Hux’s nipples and licks his lips. “For the baby.” 

“Did your-- Your reading on this, did any of it indicate that?” 

“No. Everything said it was a healthy, uh. Activity to engage in. It helps the mated pair bond.” 

Hux groans. “We’re not a--”

“I know we’re not! Lie back, I’m going to do it again.” 

“No.” Hux hugs himself around Ren’s arm. “Do it like this, I need to-- Like this.” 

Ren obeys. Hux screams again, and bites Ren’s shoulder this time. Ren grunts but doesn’t otherwise protest. 

“Fuck!” Hux shouts, scrambling up onto his knees so he can ride Ren’s finger, which isn’t nearly thick enough but perfectly precise. 

“Feels good?” Ren asks. 

Hux laughs crazily in answer, throwing his head back. “Careful,” he says when Ren moves his finger again, teasing. 

“I could fuck you right here,” Ren says. He presses, circles, watches Hux scream and flex around him before retreating. “With my cock,” he clarifies when Hux comes back to himself enough to meet Ren’s eyes.  

“I’d lose my mind,” Hux says, nodding. 

“You look so hot like this.” 

“Like-- What, fuck, what do I look like?” Hux glances down at himself. He’s not surprised to see that the heat on his face has spread to his chest. 

“Like someone who’s about to come,” Ren says. He nips a line of half-kisses, half-bites along Hux’s jaw, up toward his ear. “You want to?”

“Nuh, not-- Not until you’re in me.” 

“I am in you.” 

“All of you, fuck-- Ren, you know what I mean--” 

“I know, shh.” Ren pulls his finger out. Hux cries and bites his shoulder again, then licks him there, beseeching. “Better get on your hands and knees,” Ren says, rubbing his nose on Hux’s cheek. “Or I’ll end up kissing you.” 

Hux grabs Ren’s ears and kisses him hard on the mouth, already breaking one of the rules he made while giving himself a stern talking to in the fresher. Ren moans into Hux’s mouth and presses him down to the mattress, hands everywhere. It’s too much like one of Hux’s sex dreams, so he rolls over before Ren’s weight can settle onto him, clambering up onto his shaking limbs and offering Ren his arse. 

“Fuck me,” Hux begs, already mindless. He can hear Ren slicking up his cock, the familiar squish of lube sliding over his shaft. “Please,” Hux adds, looking back over his shoulder. 

“Hold onto something,” Ren says. 

Hux grabs the top of his low headboard, but as soon as Ren starts to push inside he loses the ability to keep his grip. He drops his cheek to the sheets and arches his back, toes curling as he takes Ren in. He’s making some kind of choked noise of devouring relief, or maybe that’s Ren.

“Fuck,” Ren says, sounding like he’ll cry. “You’re so tight, Hux--” 

“I forgot, hah, how big you are, oh--”

That’s a lie: Hux remembers every inch of this feeling, how he would let go of himself a little at a time, this fullness like floating. He’s completely in his body and almost out of his mind. Ren closes around him from behind, feeling enormous in all ways. He flicks his tongue over the back of Hux’s neck with teasing softness as he comes to a full seat inside him. It’s the purest good thing Hux has ever had: this simple, physical, warm sense of completion. Like something designed for him alone has been slotted back into place.

“Gonna angle you so I hit you right,” Ren says, both hands going to Hux’s hips. “Let me know if it’s too much.” 

Ren adjusts carefully, moves slowly. Hux wails at the first brush of Ren’s cock against his prostate; it _is_ too much, but he also wants more. 

“You’re like a fire,” Ren says, sounding as if he’s losing his mind, too. “You’re just, you’re burning, Hux, you’re so fucking hot inside, all around me--” 

Hux gurgles in agreement; he feels like he’s on fire, never wants to stop burning like this. Ren fucks him in long, steady drags, sighing with pleasure every time he sinks back in. Hux is boneless in his grip, his cock jumping as Ren pulls back enough to almost pop out, holding there for a moment so Hux can feel the wide-open stretch at his rim, and then there’s the perfect push back inside, both of them savoring it. Hux has lost his voice and is mostly making hoarse little croaking noises. As soon as he touches his dribbling cock, he’ll come. He wants to last, in part because he can’t remember the last time he felt this good, even with Ren, and also because he’s a little afraid of how intense his orgasm will be.

“I’ve got you,” Ren promises, breathing this out against the back of Hux’s neck.

 _I know_ , Hux thinks, and he sobs against the sheets. _You’ve got me, haven’t you, right back where you want me, you fucking--_

Ren grabs Hux’s cock and pumps him: rough, to contrast the otherwise gentle pace. Hux screams into the mattress, fucks himself back against the inward push of Ren’s cock and comes so hard that he’s crying, startled and undone. He’s still weeping with what he refuses to think of gratitude when Ren grunts and fills him with come, both arms wrapped high and tight around Hux’s chest. 

Hux has already broken one rule by allowing that kiss, so it seems unimportant when he allows Ren to slump onto his side, still inside him, and hold him while they both try to recover their breath. Ren smells incredible, so good that it makes Hux hungry. He brings Ren’s clean hand to his mouth and sucks on one of his fingers, enjoying the way Ren whimpers, oversensitive, when Hux clenches his arse around Ren’s softening cock. 

“I fucking love you,” Ren says, whispering this against the back of Hux’s ear and spoiling both the ease and the serenity of the moment. 

“Oh, shut up,” Hux says. He lets Ren’s finger slip from his mouth and crawls forward, groaning with a feeling of renewed satiation as Ren’s cock tugs free from his hole, come pooling on the sheets already. “You love fucking me,” Hux says, keeping his back to Ren, eyes closed. “Mind the order of your words.”

Ren leaves the bed in a hurry, predictably. Hux feigns sleep and listens to the pound of his own unsteady heartbeat. He gasps when something cool and crinkly hits his shoulder and bounces onto the bed. The packet of Rocket Snaps: Ren has thrown them from the bedroom doorway. He’s standing there, seething, when Hux sits up and gropes for the packet.

“You know why you need my help raising this kid?” Ren asks. His cock is still red and wet, and there’s a smear of Hux’s come on the jut of his right hipbone.

“Please, tell me,” Hux says dryly, pulling the Rocket Snaps packet open. The scent of them is an instant comfort, but there’s something unnerving about it, too, like traveling back in time. 

“Because you’re cold,” Ren says, pointing a finger at Hux. “And cruel. The kid will end up warped, like you are.” 

“And you’re such a warm and joyful presence. Thanks for the fuck and the unsolicited advice.” Hux pops a Rocket Snap in his mouth. “You may go now,” he says, chewing. 

“You have no idea how fucked you’d be without me.” 

“Without you?” Hux says, letting weaponized rage rise through him. “Getting fucked is the one good thing about being _with_ you! I’ve done just fine since you skipped off to train with Snoke, have you not noticed?” 

“Yeah, getting pregnant by some stranger, great job.” 

“It’s being handled!”

“You’re not even showing yet. What you think you can handle has barely started. The hard part’s coming, and you’re sticking your head in the sand, trying to drive me off like I’m some inconvenience.” 

“No, Ren, I’m trying to be bloody realistic! When you leave, I don’t want to have a giant Ren-shaped hole in the plan I made for myself and this child. Is that really so terribly hard to understand?” 

“Why do you think I’m going to leave? Where would I go?” 

“Back to Snoke!” 

“I killed Snoke!” 

Ren goes pale after shouting this. He turns and punches the wall. 

“What,” Hux says.

“It was an accident,” Ren mumbles. He turns back toward the bed and drags his fingers through his hair. “Kind of.” 

Hux’s stomach pinches up, and for a moment he’s sure he’s going to puke the few Rocket Snaps he’s eaten onto the bed. He puts the packet down and brushes the salty dust of them off his fingertips. 

“Explain,” he says when he looks up at Ren again. 

“I sensed you needed some kind of assistance,” Ren says. There’s color rising to his cheeks now, as if this is more embarrassing than a whispered love confession. “I asked for leave to go to you. For the good of the Order, I said. But Snoke saw through that. He was angry. I defied him for the first time in-- I don’t know, ever. And I didn’t mean to kill him, I just wanted to throw off this painful energy he’d focused onto me. It was the same punishment he’d always given me when I asked for something he didn’t want me to have. I just, I couldn’t-- Couldn’t accept it the way I always had, not this time, I wanted it _off_. I had some kind of a power surge when I thought about how you needed me, how he’d taken me away from you. It flooded the room we were in and hit Snoke like a thunderclap. He just crumpled. Like a pile of bones, bam. Dead.” 

“Are you sure?” Hux asks. He wants Ren’s arms around him now, again needs something to hold onto. 

“I’m sure. I brought the Knights in and confessed what I’d done. They were shocked, but not angry. I’m their master. They look to me alone for guidance. So because I killed Snoke, it must have been the right thing, in their view. Because I did it. It’s done.” 

“Ren, this is-- Why didn’t you _tell me_?” 

“I was going to. But then you were pregnant.” 

“I directly asked you what happened to Snoke! What the hell does my pregnancy have to do with it?”

“Here’s what I’m thinking,” Ren says, suddenly calm. He sits on the bed, just out of reach. “I think Snoke cut me off from my loved ones because they offer me a kind of power through rage, through the dark side. When I want to protect them, my power surges. Even enough to kill someone like Snoke. That’s why I’m excited about this baby. Well, one reason. If he’s mine-- Ours-- If we raise him together, I think my need to protect him will feed my power. And together, without Snoke, you and I can run the Order and, you know. Rule the galaxy.” 

Hux stares at Ren, attempting to process this. It’s got to be some kind of trick, something still concealed beneath this story, but it also seems true. Hux’s instincts had already told him something had changed on this scale. He just needed the details, though of course the Force and its functionality resists explanation nonetheless.

“Well,” Hux says. “At least I know the reason for your interest in my child. I should have assumed it had something to do with getting more power for yourself.”

“What other reason is there to do anything? I love you because you’re the same as me. When you think about your baby, you consider him as an asset for your Empire.” 

Hux grabs for the Rocket Snaps and angrily eats one. “Not all the time,” he says.

Ren takes the bag of Snaps and jams a handful of them into his mouth. He makes a face when he’s chewing.

“Gross,” he says. 

“Fuck you.” Hux snatches the bag back and eats more of them, somewhat frantically. Their familiar taste is grounding him in this insane moment. “They’re good.” 

“They taste like the floor of a theater.”  

“I’ll take your word for it, since I’ve never licked a theater floor. Not surprised to hear that you have. Can you get out? I need to think.” 

“Why can’t you think when I’m here?”

“That’s a wonderful question, Ren. You can ponder it while you’re away. Now go.”

“How many times do you think you can reject me?” Ren asks, standing. “I’m a person, too. I have limits. There are only so many times I’m going to come back after you tell me I’m a worthless piece of garbage.” 

“I never said that!” 

Hux feels his eyes burning. Entirely against his will, he’s having some kind of emotion. It’s filling his chest like it wants to push something out of him. 

“I’m pretty sure you said that, Hux.” Ren is gathering his clothes. If he’s noticed that Hux is suddenly, absurdly on the verge of tears, he doesn’t seem concerned about it. 

“You abandoned me,” Hux says. His voice is shaking: fuck. Now Ren is looking at him, and looking surprised, his clothes hugged to his chest. “Even before we lost Starkiller, well before that, before you were called away for the training, you-- Oh, fuck it, never mind. Snoke is dead! This changes everything, and I have-- Work to do, so. Just go.” 

“Things were different then,” Ren says. “When I left--” 

“Right, I wasn’t carrying a source of power for you in my womb at the time. What if you only killed Snoke because it was the first time you’d really tried to fight his hold over you? It’s probably got nothing to do with me. All you sensed was that I’d moved on, because I’d been with someone else. You couldn’t abide that, so you threw a tantrum. That’s what killed Snoke, not some kind of love crisis.” 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. And you don’t know how to accept love. I pity your child.” 

“Get out!” 

“I’m trying to!”

“Put your clothes on in the fucking hallway, I want you out now!” 

Hux expects to start crying again when Ren is gone, out the door naked with his boots and clothes bundled against his chest, his helmet under his arm. Instead of tears, Hux is besieged with the sensation of plummeting down through some cold chasm. It’s a numbing, helpless sensation, and he hates it. He wants desperately to talk to someone, anyone but Ren, as if doing so would stop him from falling. 

“Don’t worry,” he says, rubbing his belly. “That man is not your father.” 

But saying so makes it feel like a possibility for the first time: what if Ren could be trusted, in this alternate universe they’re suddenly living in, with Snoke dead and the galaxy spread out before them like a buffet they can pick from as they choose? Hux has never had anyone he could rely on. He doesn’t know what that would feel like. There was a woman when he was young, a kind of mentor who once promised to keep him safe. Rae. The thought of her name makes his eyes burn again. She disappeared while he was away at the Academy. Missing in action, presumed dead. She wasn’t his first lesson in inevitable abandonment, but losing her was what made the truth stick: there is no one who can be counted on, not ever. 

“Except me,” he says to the baby. “Whatever happens, you’ll have me.” 

It feels like a hollow promise. Hux eats the rest of the Rocket Snaps and slumps into the fresher to clean himself up. Despite all his plans, he’s suffering the way he always does when Ren leaves. So throwing Ren out himself doesn’t actually make his absence any easier to bear: noted.

Hux gathers himself once he’s presentable and goes to his comm. He calls an emergency meeting with Unamo and Vestra, leaving the rest of his senior staff off of the message for now. Snoke is gone. The Order is free of his arcane rule at last. There is much to be done, and Hux’s strict sleep schedule will have to be put on hiatus for now. 

**

Hux has always excelled at grabbing power in a vacuum, and until now he’s never been in such a prime spot already when seizing an opportunity to do so. Snoke’s secrecy and unwillingness to expose his grim visage to the general population of the Order, combined with Kylo Ren’s long absence and the Knights’ similar opaque presence outside the chain of command, have left people not only willing but ready to hear Hux tell them that he is the acting Supreme Leader while Snoke’s disappearance is investigated. Hux sends several officers on a special mission to Snoke’s fortress, and his only communication with Ren in the heady weeks following Ren’s confession to Snoke’s murder is to ask for an assurance that his officers won’t be harmed by any lurking Knights when they arrive to confirm that the previous Supreme Leader is dead. 

Ren’s answering grunt seems to suggest that he’s agreeable to this. 

“The way I’m framing it is that you and I are still co-commanders,” Hux explains while Ren listens in silence, still breathless from the mad pummelling he was unleashing on a punching bag when Hux found him in the gym. “But as you’re still outside the chain of command, and unless you’d like to fight me for the position, I’ll ascend to Supreme Leader, at least in title. Obviously, I’ll still value and respect your input for as much as you’d like to offer it. I’m giving you an opportunity to craft your own role in the regime, going forward.” Hux’s jaw tightens when Ren stalks back over to the punching bag and starts hitting it again. “Of course, if that doesn’t interest you, you and the Knights can always drift off and be monks together in some appropriately dreary backwater. If that’s what you want.” 

“I killed Snoke,” Ren says. He’s not looking at Hux, still hitting the bag. “That makes me Supreme Leader. I would think.” 

“Do you really want my job? The speeches, the tiresome dinners with political allies, hours spent approving command-level reports every night--”  

“I’ve told you what I want.” 

A family, Hux thinks. He doesn’t dare say it, and leaves without saying anything else at all. Ren continues to wail on the punching bag like a teenage boy who has been told he must clean his room if he wants to use the family cruiser. 

Another period of avoiding each other begins then and stretches on for a week. Hux is physically exhausted after cutting into his rest cycles for purposes of plotting and tying up loose ends in Snoke’s absence, making careful moves that won’t look like a greedy power grab. There isn’t a need for one, as far as he can see: Ren is sulking, obsessing over personal melodrama rather than prudent strategy, as ever. Otherwise, Hux’s underlings are loyal, or at least too nervous to try anything just yet. Operations are going well in general, and Hux has given the go-ahead for the mission to collect materials for his ship-destabilizing weapon. When his officers return and issue their formal report on Snoke’s demise from what they describe as an “apparent earthquake,” everything seems within Hux’s reach at last: the kind of galactic rule he always dreamed about. It’s resting, if not quite closed, right in his palm.  

The hours he does set aside for sleep are restless and haunted by bad dreams. It’s something to do with having everything he’s ever wanted so close: a path toward an Emperor’s throne, the sudden return of Ren amid insane promises of love and devotion, and even the prospect of having a little heir at his feet during this potentially most glorious time of his life. The combination of all these seeming windfalls is somewhat staggering after so many years of grinding scarcity, enough to plague him with irrational but near-constant doubts about actually being able to keep any of it. Hux often lies awake after murky nightmares that leave him coated in dread like an invisible grime, his hands pressed desperately over his stomach. His research indicates that if all is well he’ll feel the baby moving soon, and in these lonely stretches of sleeplessness he’s sure he wants that more than galactic domination or anything else. 

During his working hours he has no time to be preoccupied with doubt, and he at least feels confident that he would know if something was wrong with the pregnancy, likely because he would be in tremendous pain. He’s also sure that Ren would come running if anything were amiss enough to be felt through the Force, despite their current determination to avoid each other otherwise. Hux is so busy that he can sometimes tell himself he’s forgotten why Ren is having a sulk this time, but during every solitary lift ride or stolen moment of peace under the blast of a sonic shower Hux again hears Ren whispering _I fucking love you_ , and then comes the shattered-glass memory of Hux’s response. 

He can’t deny that protecting himself from such post-fuck whisperings is the right thing to do. He wants to reunite with Ren at least physically, because part of his inability to sleep involves a dull ache to be filled that makes him feel itchy and pulled tight with need, but Ren has proven to be too sloppy to fit into the purely sexual role that Hux always should have cast him in. Hux will reevaluate Ren’s place in his life when things calm down, though he’s not sure what calming down will look like. There are weapon prototype simulations to oversee, extensive investigations into Snoke’s dealings with foreign governments that have to be very delicately navigated, plus the continued efforts to stamp out what’s left of the New Republic and the pestering presence of the Resistance that pops up in reports from time to time. When Hux feels his head spinning on the bridge, he tells himself this is normal, just a symptom of assuming new power and embracing his sprawling responsibilities more robustly than ever.

Then he blacks out in the middle of a conversation with Lieutenant Mitaka, right at the front of the command bridge, in view of everyone on shift. 

He wakes up on his back in a bed with Ren looming over him. There’s a hazy moment when he’s sure he dreamed most of the events of the past year, or at least the past four months. He notices Ren’s faded scar, which seems like undeniable proof that he’s returned to reality, and sits up with a sharp intake of breath. 

“Did I lose the baby?” Hux asks, shouting this in Ren’s face just as the other people standing in the medbay room come into view at the corner of Hux’s eye. But he doesn’t care, doesn’t care, because Ren looks heartbroken, wounded, something happened-- 

“The baby’s fine,” Ren says, and then he kisses Hux on the forehead with an awkward, audible smack of his lips. “Darling,” he adds as an afterthought, like he’s reading from a script. 

“I-- What happened?” Hux is still holding onto Ren’s shoulders when he turns to take a tentative look at the others in the room. He recognizes the Chief Medical Officer and two members of her staff: a medic droid and a young woman who lowers her gaze respectfully when Hux meets her eyes. 

“You lost consciousness on the bridge,” Ren says. “Extreme fatigue.” 

“I don’t know that I’d use the word extreme,” the CMO says, stepping forward. She’s maybe twenty years older than Hux, stern-looking and almost as tall as Ren. “But the incident is alarming, sir, particularly considering your condition.” 

Hux allows the full weight of reality to sink in around his ears like ice water. His condition. She knows of it. Hux has confessed to it himself, with that panicked exclamation. So this is the moment when all his careful scheming comes crashing down. He feels now like he knew it was imminent. 

“He’s had trouble sleeping,” Ren says, sliding his arm around Hux’s shoulders. Hux resists the urge to violently shrug him off. Ren is using this moment to his advantage, of course. Cementing the story he’s been wanting to tell. 

“The-- But everything’s all right?” Hux asks, his hand twitching with the need to slide across his belly. He clenches both hands in the blanket that’s draped over his legs instead.

“You’ve recovered optimally from the incident, sir,” the CMO says. Hux remembers her name as more of his mental faculties return to him: Captain Peregrin. “Fortunately, Lieutenant Mitaka caught you before you could hit the ground, so there’s no cranial damage or even bruising.” 

“And the baby,” Hux asks, grimly now, having trouble with the words but unable to resist asking. 

“The baby is perfectly healthy.” There’s a twinkle in Peregrin's eyes that Hux doesn’t like. Perhaps she’s imagining she’ll make a name for herself. Hux stares back at her with a look that he hopes will clearly communicate that he can and will have her killed if he likes. “I understand why you hesitated to seek onboard care, sir,” Peregrin says. “It’s a sensitive situation, of course. Also a miraculous occurrence, if you don’t mind me saying so.” 

“We used the Force,” Ren says, and it takes every ounce of strength Hux has left to keep from grimacing and slapping Ren’s face. “So. There’s complexity involved that you may not understand.” 

“I see.” Peregrin glances from Ren to Hux. “Of course, if you have another doctor, a private doctor, I defer to their treatment plan.” 

“Treatment plan?” Hux says. “Why should I need one-- Do you predict complications?”

“Those are possible with any unusual pregnancy, but as of right now I don’t see any reason for special concern, beyond your exhaustion. Kylo mentioned that you’re taking supplements to help you sleep.” 

Hux glances at Ren, not sure if Peregrin or the others will notice the hellfire in his eyes. Hux might be flattering himself, but for a moment he thinks Ren actually looks scared not for him but of him. 

“Yes,” Hux says. “I prefer not to be medicated with anything that might compromise my mental function even in the slightest.” 

“Of course, sir, and I wouldn’t recommend the regular taking of sleep aids, but I do have a stim that would be safe for you to take now, to help you recover some strength. I would recommend that you rest for a full, undisturbed cycle.” 

Hux agrees to this mostly so he can escape the attention of Peregrin and her assistants. Ren helps him from the medbay bed with exaggerated care and accompanies him to his rooms with his helmet on, keeping silent and walking very close, as if Hux might collapse again at any moment. Hux feels shaky, cold, but he makes it to his quarters without needing to be swept into Ren’s arms. 

“I’m sure you loved that,” Hux says as soon as the door shuts behind them, though he’s really too tired to fight. “Now you’ve gotten what you wanted. They all think it’s yours.” 

“I had to make a swift executive decision when you collapsed on duty. Hux. Let me help you. You can’t afford to wear yourself down right now. Things aren’t as usual.” 

Hux slumps into his bedroom without answering. He hasn’t taken the sleep aid yet but he already feels compromised, unable to put a logical thought process together. It’s as if he’s straddling several realities, unable to set foot firmly in any of them. Maybe once the baby is here, or once he feels more secure in his command, perhaps after a decisive battle, though lately their enemies seem to be running scared, which might mean they’re plotting something--

“I shouldn’t have allowed you to be stubborn after we argued,” Ren says, following Hux to the bed. Hux can’t pretend he’s not glad for Ren’s hovering, even if he can’t bring himself to be grateful for Ren’s machinations in medbay. He doesn’t want to be alone with this feeling of untethered possibility. “I could have been less stubborn myself,” Ren says when Hux gives him a look. “But you don’t make it easy. You push me-- You infuriate me.” 

“The feeling is mutual.” 

“I’m trying to be clear with you, I--” 

“Being clear might have involved mentioning that you killed Snoke sooner rather than later.” 

“Stop.” Ren kneels onto the bed, wielding the stim. “We can return to this later. You need to rest.” 

Hux touches his belly and nods. “But I can’t just step away from command for an entire cycle,” he says, even as he watches Ren administer the stim to the fleshy part of his upper arm. Someone took Hux’s uniform shirt off in medbay; he came back in only his undershirt and greatcoat, which he dropped unceremoniously on his way into the bedroom. It’s unlike him. All of this is unlike him. Ren is right: things have changed. 

“You do have a co-commander,” Ren says, speaking softly as he smoothes Hux’s hair back. “I can keep an eye on the bridge from here. I’ll watch your comm for anything urgent.” 

“Ren.” Hux rolls toward him and shuts his eyes, wincing. “How will I do this? When people find out? When they look at me and see-- a Force user’s vessel.” 

“That’s not what they’ll see. We’ll make sure of that. You’re a master of propaganda and crafting a public persona, are you not? When people look at you they’ll see me at your side. The child you’re carrying represents the future of a triumphant Order we’ll lead together. That’s what your people will see. New life and strength.” 

Hux falls asleep with these words settling over him like a lullaby. Ren is close, warm, stroking his hair. After some blissful, shallow drifting beneath this feeling, Hux plunges into a much deeper sleep and stays there, held steady in motionless rest by the drugs from the stim. 

He wakes feeling different, washed over and weak but also comfortable. It’s always been his instinct to immediately snap to attention and assess the situation when he feels like this, like he’s not quite sure which room or cycle he’s awakened in, but he takes his time now because Ren is still beside him. He’s reading from Hux’s data pad, the soft glow of its screen providing the only illumination in the room. Without looking up from whatever he’s reading, Ren reaches over to run his fingers through Hux’s hair, then down along his jaw. 

“You scared the shit out of me,” Ren says. His voice is a low rumble, and the darkness of the room seems to hum around them like a security barrier, keeping the rest of the galaxy from encroaching. “I felt it when you dropped, like a light going out. It blinded me for a moment.” 

“If we’re so connected,” Hux says, yawning. “I wish I could feel it, too.” 

“You can. Stop lying to yourself. It’s inefficient, for one.” 

Hux moans with feigned annoyance and wriggles closer. “How long was I out?” 

“The full cycle, as prescribed. Plus a few hours.” 

“Is the ship still intact?”

“Yes, look.” Ren scoots down and tucks his arm around Hux, hugging him to his chest so he can see the data pad’s screen. “There was a minor ventilator malfunction on systems subdeck C, and the officer who oversees that sector wrote you a little report about it. He’s very deferential and apologetic, swears it won’t happen again. We’re just two cycles out from Tition, and the materials pickup has been arranged with our contact there. Every precaution has been taken for maximum discretion, he assures you. Peregrin sent you a message saying that Lieutenant Mitaka came to medbay to inquire about your condition. She dismissed him and told him to mind his own business, of course.”  

Hux’s eyes are wet when Ren looks up from the data screen. He folds himself fully into Ren’s lap, tucking his knees to Ren’s chest and his face to Ren’s neck. It’s a deathblow to Hux’s efforts to protect himself from whatever happens next, but the war is lost and it feels too good when Ren’s arms tighten around him. He can’t even regret this surrender. 

For a while they stay like that without speaking. Ren’s heartbeat is steady against Hux’s shoulder, and the room feels so secret and safe, far away from anything that might intrude. It’s an illusion, but Hux has learned through Ren that those can feel good, as solid as an embrace if just as ephemeral. Ren slides one hand down to Hux’s belly, his other palm pressed over the back of Hux’s neck. It’s the perfect trap for Hux, just as it’s always been, drawing him out toward a ledge he can’t topple over again. He won’t be plummeting alone this time, when he loses his footing.

“I’m not going to leave you,” Ren says. He’s either reading Hux’s mind or knows him well enough to understand why he’s trembling and clinging, hiding his face. “There’s no reason to now.” 

“Precisely. There’s no reason _now_. But one will come, later. Eventually.” 

“No-- Hux. I ignored you before we fired Starkiller for a reason, that’s true. But it was to do with Snoke, and he’s gone now.” 

“You say that like it’s so easy for you.” Like everything. “Snoke’s gone, you killed Snoke. As if he was always some afterthought. He was supposed to be your master, you _swore_ yourself to him. He counted on your devotion and was left for dead when you ripped it away from him, literally. How should I feel when I see you drop all that like it was another whim, like--” 

“I could explain properly if you’d shut up.” 

Hux sits back and glares at him. Ren smiles, though he looks kind of queasy and frightened, maybe only because of the odd lighting. 

“It wasn’t easy,” Ren says. His voice is rough, suddenly. “Or maybe it was, in practice, but. Then I was left with what felt like nothing. After all I’d done, and given up.” Ren lowers his gaze and lets Hux touch his face, where some stubble has pricked up since Hux fell asleep. 

“Tell me,” Hux says. 

“Mmm, you’ll probably laugh.” 

“I really doubt it’s all that funny.” 

“I had a premonition. The closer we got to firing the weapon, the more intense it became. It was persistent, regular, trying to tell me something. To warn me. And I knew it wasn’t coming from Snoke, because it was about him. I was being warned that Snoke would ask me to kill someone I loved. And I thought, at the time-- I was sure you were the only person I loved. So I removed myself from your presence.” 

Hux considers this in silence, still running gentle fingertips over the stubble on Ren’s cheek.

“But there was someone else?” he asks, feeling as if he’s missing something. 

Ren nods. His eyes are shining when he meets Hux’s gaze, not quite wet. Ren can cry without the added humiliation of shedding tears, but his whole face changes, twitching into something vulnerable that’s maybe worse than weeping. Hux usually has to look away. He cups Ren’s face in both hands and holds his gaze now, sweeping his thumbs over Ren’s dry cheeks until he’s composed himself. 

“My father,” Ren says. “Han Solo. He didn’t die during the destruction of Starkiller as assumed. I did it, just before. He was my test. I thought, because I’d kept you safe, that I’d fooled Snoke somehow, that he was trying to take something I’d already lost, or something I didn’t want. I thought it would make me stronger, like shedding the last of an old skin. But.” 

Ren presses his face to Hux’s shoulder. Hux holds him and wonders if this is the time to confess that he killed Brendol when he was sixteen, or if that would constitute stealing Ren’s thunder. Perhaps it’s not the same, because Hux didn’t do it by his own hand. But he knew of a plan-- Rae came to him, out of respect-- Hux didn’t lift a finger to warn the old man. It was the right strategic move. Brendol would have done it to him, too. Maybe. Probably. He holds Ren tighter, trying not to dwell on the fact that he’s never had anyone to rely on who might not also stand to gain from murdering him. Ren included, really. He swears to himself that his own son will never feel that way. He’ll at least offer his child that basic security. 

“That was what changed things,” Ren says. “I tried to get past what I’d done, but it burned at the core of me, until-- I think I must have sensed that you were going to become a father. I already missed you, Hux-- But this was unbearable, suddenly. I couldn’t be away from you. Everything in me screamed to return, even if it meant defying Snoke. So I did. And then I was lost-- I am lost, without you. Please don’t forsake me. Let me be a part of this.” Ren brushes his thumb over Hux’s belly and lifts his face. His eyes are still dry but also broken-looking, begging. “I need this,” he says. “Need you. Where do you think I would rather be, ever? This is where I belong, and you know it, I know you can feel it, too--”

“Shh, you’re babbling.” 

Hux kisses Ren to quiet him. His heart is pounding, the haze of the sleep aid burning off and all of his analytical processes coming back online, alarms going off here and there. But Ren kisses so sweetly, and he’s so warm, earnest and sniffling. Hux is treading into dangerous waters, letting Ren deepen the kiss and sigh into his mouth as if he’s tasting relief and acceptance. Perhaps at the center of this emotional swamp there really is a fortified island where they can rule together. It’s a long shot, but Hux can no longer deny that he can’t shoulder all of this without help. It’s logical, on one level. Maybe he can’t trust Ren entirely, but he still trusts him more than anyone else.  

And, worse, horribly: he’s tired of being alone. It’s become so labor intensive to tell himself every day, all the time, that he’s fine with it. Even getting pregnant came with a flicker of hope, deep down but still burning, that someone might finally come into his life and stay there.

“When you’ve had to work as hard as I have, you build up a certain amount of fear of not getting what you want,” Hux says. “Perhaps too much.” 

“That’s not where your fear comes from,” Ren says, mumbling. 

Hux flicks Ren’s chin. “Do you really want to spoil the moment by lecturing me about myself?” 

He’s joking. Mostly.

“Am I really what you want?” Ren asks, and for a moment Hux thinks he’s joking, too, but he’s searching Hux’s eyes like he sincerely needs an answer. 

“You,” Hux says, nodding, and he settles his hand over Ren’s on his belly. “And this little one. And the entire galaxy on its knees at our feet.” He grins when Ren does. “That’s all.” 

 

**

Time passes, and delicate routines take shape. Ren’s things gradually migrate to Hux’s quarters. Hux does less micromanaging and more sleeping, though only by small degrees. It still makes a difference: he feels less like he’s hurtling through an asteroid belt and more like he’s sailing across an ocean resembling the one he knew as a boy on Arkanis, rocked with storms some mornings and eerily calm on others, but usually somewhere between the two. 

One benefit of allowing Ren and others to oversee certain operations is that Hux has uninterrupted time to devote to perfecting his weapon design. He enjoys the solitude of the work, and by the sixth month of his pregnancy he’s no longer stopping himself from absently rubbing his rounded-out belly while muttering nonsensical observations and inquiries in the baby’s direction, as if his unborn child is his laboratory assistant. _Would this work better with a dexiplast coating? Hmm? Do you think? Let’s try it_. He also doesn’t correct his tendency to smile like a lunatic whenever he feels the baby move. It feels like a commendation, as if he’s being told that he’s doing a good job, and he never could have predicted than an unborn child’s praise would seem like the highest he’s ever gotten. If Ren is present he’ll come dashing over to feel it, too, and Hux enjoys this, smugly: he’s sharing his special sensitivity with Ren rather than vice versa, at last. 

In the realm of sensitivity, Hux’s prostate remains king, with his nipples serving as demanding courtiers. Ren fucks him too gently but also just right, playing Hux like an instrument with long, deliberate strokes of his cock. When Hux needs something harder he rides Ren, facing toward Ren’s feet so his stomach won’t distract him by rubbing between them while he bounces and moans. 

“You’re glowing,” Ren says during one of these fucks. He strokes Hux’s back with one hand while he tweaks a nipple with the other, his hips lifting in a helpless stutter when Hux cries out for the feeling and clenches up around him. 

“Shut up,” Hux says, coated in sweat and close to coming for the second time in one night. He can’t get enough and feels like a starving person when Ren walks into a room, his scent almost unbearably strong to Hux’s piqued senses but also so good, just perfect, enough to make Hux want to drink from Ren’s dick before climbing into his lap. He longs above all to wear Ren out, to drain him of every drop and see him conquered, but Ren is hard to exhaust and Hux is usually asleep within seconds of his climax, if only to wake a short time later and prod Ren for more. 

“I’m serious,” Ren says now, bringing both his hands down to squeeze Hux’s tensed-up thighs. “Your imperial seal should have a sun motif. You’re the brilliant light that powers the new Empire.” 

Hux laughs low in his throat, too giddy to pretend not to be flattered by this nonsense. He secretly loves how Ren refuses to shut up during sex; it’s probably not an actual secret, considering Ren’s powers and how he always keeps talking no matter what Hux says. Hux’s legs are beginning to tire, but he’s still not ready to climb off of Ren, or to stop feeling as exalted and regal as he does when they’re locked together like this. Every rest cycle is like this now: Hux gets precisely what he needs, turns to jelly and melts onto the bed, well-fucked, Ren gathered all around him and making contented growling noises because he’s insane, protective. 

“Hux, _ahh_ , yeah, ride that dick. I bask in your light, Emperor.” 

“Shut _up_.” Hux laughs hard and grabs his cock, ready to evaporate into his orgasm while he feels like this, like he’s already on a throne of sorts. He comes with a shout when Ren’s hand covers his and pumps, milking him. Hux’s arse milks Ren’s cock in turn, and when they’re through Hux crawls onto the mussed sheets while come gushes from him, rewarding Ren with soft noises of approval when he does his best to clean Hux up as he drifts into sleep. 

Hux should say _I love you_. It’s a dumb token, cheap and small, but Ren comes from the land of those and it’s important to him. Hux falls asleep, as usual, deciding he’ll do it later. 

Even with Ren there beside him and no immediate doom on the horizon, nightmares come frequently. Hux dreams most often of his mother, who he’s only ever seen in a grainy old holo of kitchen staff registry. She’s a flicking hologram in his dreams, too, and he reaches for her, needing something from her and never able to get it. Dreams of Brendol are worse: he steals Hux’s baby, locks Hux up in the dark someplace, accuses him of betraying Rae to her doom when really it was Rae and Hux who did that to Brendol. Hux can’t speak in most of these dreams, which makes him feel more helpless than lacking a blaster ever has. He wants to cry out for Ren, and often he wakes doing so, humiliated by the tenderness Ren shows him in the dark of their bedroom but unable to push him away. Hux clings, and sometimes the baby stirs between them. 

“Can you tell me what he’s feeling?” Hux asks one night after a particularly bad dream, when he’s just past seven months along and unable to resist this question any longer. He’s withheld it until now because he doesn’t want Ren to know more about the baby than he does, but after a nightmare that he gave birth to an infant with a stormtrooper helmet for a head, he needs some intel about what’s actually going on in there. Something that even Peregrin with all her various scanning devices wouldn’t be able to tell him. 

“He’s sleeping,” Ren says, softly and with reverence, his face close to Hux’s on the pillow.

“Lucky him. My distress didn’t wake him?”

“No. He’s used to it, I think, in this context. Hux. You have so many bad dreams.”  

“I doubt yours are better,” Hux says, feeling judged. 

“They’re not so terrible with you here.” Ren sounds forlorn, as if he wishes he could offer Hux the same security. He kisses Hux’s nose and spreads his hand out over his stomach, which is fairly enormous now, the skin stretched tight. Hux already had to have his greatcoat taken out to allow him to button it over the bump, and he fears a further alteration will be required. 

“Does he know who I am?” Hux asks when he’s just tired enough to voice the question, blinking heavily and allowing Ren to nuzzle at him. 

“Not intellectually,” Ren says. He gives Hux an admonishing nose bump when he laughs. “But instinctually, sure. He’s knows he’s safe in there. With you.” 

“Oh--” Hux grabs Ren’s ear and pinches his eyes shut tight, feels overcome with something that wants to overflow from him. It’s not tears or anything else so literal. “I really want him, Ren.” 

“I know.” Ren moves his thumb on Hux’s stomach, exhales warmly against his cheek. “And you have him. He’s right here.” 

“Of course, I know that, but-- It’s all so-- I feel like I’m fooling myself-- Sometimes, about all of it--” 

“You’re just tired. You still work too hard. The doctor might recommend bedrest soon. It’s not uncommon for Dissonian males with narrow frames.” 

“Don’t call me a Dissonian male! Or narrow.”

“You know what I mean.” Ren gives him a peck on the lips, a little apology. “We should think about making an announcement.” 

“I want to wait until he’s here and presentable,” Hux says. Ren knows this already. They’ve discussed it. Hux trusts that Peregrin and her staff have kept their mouth shuts about his regular checkups and the situation in general, but in a perverse way he actually likes the idea of word getting around organically, behind his back. The thought of making a speech with a baby hugged to his chest is too bizarre, though probably necessary, if they’re to present this child the way they plan to: as a symbol of the Order’s healthy future. 

“I know that’s your ideal scenario,” Ren says. He seems to be choosing his words carefully. “But, Hux. Surprises might come.” 

“Surprises? Like what? Have you sensed something?” 

“No. But new life is one of the most chaotic representations of the Force’s sacred energy. It can’t be scheduled around like an officer’s meeting.” 

Hux doesn’t want to hear that, particularly because he has no rational argument against it. Ren is right, of course. Hux curls in as closely as he can to Ren’s chest and tries to sleep again. It helps to think that his baby is sleeping and that Hux is joining him in this activity. So they’re already doing things together, as a family. 

He’s eight months along when they receive intel about the Resistance taking credit for an attack on one of their mining facilities in the Outer Rim. It’s an area used primarily for weapon manufacturing by droids. As he’s drawing close to a testable prototype of his ship-disabling weapon, Hux takes this assault on his resources personally. This will set things back, making the initial test fall uncomfortably close to his due date. 

“It’s just a test,” Ren says when Hux is in his bath, fuming. “It’s not a battle. It can be overseen by others.” 

“No. It can’t. It’s _my_ weapon, my design, and we both know too well that the details that middling engineers won’t notice are everything.” Hux thinks of Starkiller and feels a mournful pang. It’s still like remembering a lost loved one. He pushes Ren’s hand away when he tries to continue cleaning Hux’s chest with a damp cloth as if he’s an invalid. Hux can no longer get into or out of the bath without Ren’s assistance, admittedly. He’s enormous, uncomfortable, too hot within his own skin. “And it might as well be a battle we’re preparing for, if they’re making strikes like this. I should have Manford killed for not stopping them. The damage done is extensive!” 

“Shhh.” Ren puts his hand over Hux’s belly, where the baby is kicking as if he’s enraged, too. “Don’t get worked up. It’s just one mining operation, we have others--” 

“And I’ve had about enough of you downplaying my concerns!” Hux says, not caring that he’s nearing a shout. “Since when are you so complacent? I’m trying to secure a future for my child here-- For all my children, really, the whole Order looks to me, they’re all my charges, every stormtrooper and officer and citizen, you don’t know what that’s like--” 

“I do.” Ren is still stroking Hux’s belly in an infuriating attempt to soothe him. “I feel this way about the Knights. I worry I’m neglecting to foster their growth in the Force and strengthen their connection to the Dark. But one must find balance within his own tasks.” 

“Don’t give me that Jedi shit right now, please.”

“It’s not Jedi shit. Balance is important for the dark side. It can consume you if you don’t tend carefully to your use of it. Or blind you to your own vulnerability, as it did Snoke.” 

“I don’t see what good this lecture is doing me. I’m having a vent, can I not be allowed that?”

“You were getting all red with rage. Think of the baby.” 

“He can take it! He’s mine, he’s made of strong stuff.” 

Ren pulls his hand away. He doesn’t like it when Hux refers to the baby as solely his, which is absurd. Hux is the one carrying him. He’s doing all the real work while Ren dotes like a Republic-born nanny. 

That night in bed, Ren is quiet. Hux continues grumbling, talking back to the reports that irritate him and asking the baby rhetorical questions when Ren refuses to participate in his grousing. Hux is aware that he’s being difficult, but he no longer cares about modulating his emotions when he’s out of the public eye. Ren has seen it all, and he signed up for this knowingly, voluntarily. The fool.

“I suppose you think I’m awfully cruel to you and that you’re some kind of hero for putting up with it,” Hux says when he can’t take Ren’s silence any longer. “You must be regretting this whole thing by now.”

Ren glances up at him with pleading eyes. Hux swallows something at the back of his throat, a scratch of discomfort that burns when it goes down. 

“I could never regret you,” Ren says. “You’re home to me.” 

“Home?” 

“More than the Republic ever was, or Snoke’s teachings.” Ren looks away, up at the ceiling. He’s lying on his back. He needs to wash his hair, Hux notes, blinking rapidly and waiting to know what to do now. “You’re my family,” Ren says. “But I’ve never been good at those. So I’m probably doing everything wrong. I’m sorry, I-- Just wanted. I thought. If it was different, but--” 

“Shut up,” Hux says, out of habit, his throat tightening. 

To his horror, Ren does. Ren is silent and still, the corners of his eyes sinking as he keeps his gaze focused on the ceiling. 

Fucking Ren. This drama. Hux wants to shove him or tell him off, wants to blame Ren for the way his nose and lips are twitching, a quiet but intense battle to keep from sobbing like an idiot. 

_I don’t know how to do this_ , Hux could say. Or _I love you_ , cheap and easy, like patting an overworked lieutenant on the shoulder to keep him loyal. He doesn’t want to admit to either thing, and swallows painfully around all the admissions he might be making, like: my life began when I loved you and so you have the power to end it, you monster, you menace, and it’s a fatal flaw, we both know about weapons with one simple rotten thing at their core that could bring it all down, and you’re mine. And what the fuck am I, if I’m not a weapon?

The baby kicks. Hux takes a stuttering breath in and exhales as smoothly as he can. 

“You know you stole my soul?” he says.

Ren finally looks at him then.

Hux nods. “I was doing fine before you. That was why your eyes followed me across rooms, because I was the kind of bitter cold that you wanted to be. Envious boy, you ripped that right out of me. Made me more like you, someone who would lean over and open up and-- I’d never let someone fuck me before you, do you even know that? Have I never told you? I was always-- I had to be in control, I had to-- And I never would have-- If I hadn't been warped by you, all those years, if you hadn't left me like that, wanting something I thought I would never have again, then I wouldn’t have gone looking for some random man in a space station bar, wouldn’t have found that one with Dissonian blood, and I wouldn't be-- And Snoke would have killed me, eventually, if you hadn't-- So, you see? It's all your fault, Ren, all of it. Everything I have, you put it in my hands. And that makes me incapable of hating you. So you took away my very soul. I had a system. It worked so well. I could hate anything, it made me powerful. But not you.”

A pathetic love confession, but Hux couldn’t do better with a blaster to his head. Ren will have to accept this. He must. His gaze is soft, maybe a little pitying. He reaches for Hux and touches his shoulder, his cheek. 

“I’ve never heard a more beautiful description of the dark side of the Force,” Ren says, so sincere that his eyes gleam. 

“What?” Hux barks, lip raising. “That’s not what that was.” 

Ren leans over to kiss Hux on the lips. Hux bites him, but not hard enough to draw blood, then allows Ren’s tongue press into his mouth. Deflates beneath him. 

“Nothing is more closely tied to the dark side than love,” Ren says, whispering this against Hux’s lips. “It’s selfish. It narrows you to caring for just a few people. The few you would do anything for. You understand that more than most. You wanted it for so long, so much. Like me.” 

“You had it,” Hux says, thinking of Organa, Solo, Ren’s angst about betraying them. 

“I couldn’t accept it. Love without understanding is torture.” 

Hux groans and pulls Ren down, cradles him against his chest. Hux will always be worn thin by discussions like this. If Ren claims to understand him, he must know that. Perhaps he does, because when Hux only sighs and combs his fingers through Ren’s hair, Ren seems content to drop the subject. 

“Just fucking stay with me,” Hux says when he’s not sure if Ren has drifted off to sleep. 

“I will,” Ren says. 

“I mean this very literally. Don’t even die or anything.” 

“I won’t.”

“You-- Won’t?” 

“Have you never heard the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?”

“No?”

Ren laughs. Hux pulls his hair and makes him explain why that’s funny. Even after he has, Hux doesn’t really get it, but he’s exhausted enough to give up, roll over, settle back against the plentiful spoon of Ren’s body, and sleep.

**

A month later, all the nightmares Hux had of his baby being born during a catastrophic battle aboard the _Finalizer_ or on Starkiller while it’s deteriorating dissolve into nothing: it’s a routine work day, a full week after a test of his ship-disabler that was successful, if indicative of some needed adjustments. Hux is in his office when the pain starts, is marching briskly toward medbay moments later, and only needs to be carried to a bed there at the last moment, when a contraction rocks through him like a decisive blast and his legs give out. 

Peregrin is there, along with her sweet-faced assistant who has far better bedside manner, also a droid. Hux screams at the droid to get out just before the sedative cuts off all feeling below his ribcage, then doesn’t protest further when the droid remains. Ren is at his side, sobbing silently and petting Hux’s hair, sniffling against his clammy cheek while the surgery is performed. Hux looks a few times, grimly curious, then looks away with regret. By the time his squalling child is being lifted from him, the gory sight of his own split-open body has no effect. He just reaches out, desperate. 

“One moment, sir,” Peregrin says, with a practiced condescension that makes Hux determined to murder her while she watches her assistant give the baby a cursory wipe-down and exam. The droid sews up Hux’s abdomen in the meantime, then places a large bacta pad over it and babbles some inane, unneeded instruction about not removing it.

Roan screams his little lungs out, and Hux strains his shaking arms toward him, close to asking Ren to use the Force to recapture the baby by the time Peregrin finally brings him over, announcing that he’s healthy, seven pounds exactly. 

“What does the name mean?” Ren asks, his voice still cut up as he watches Hux kiss Roan’s head over and over. Roan has some fuzzy red-brown hair, Hux’s nose, and intelligent eyes that claimed Hux forever, instantly, when they met his in a blurry, angry little blink. 

“Nothing,” Hux says. His eyes grow wet again from the strain of the lie, but he’ll explain later. It’s his tribute to Rae. Not overt; nothing sentimental in the world of the Order can be obvious. She taught him that. Roan is a common enough name among ex-Imperials and their progeny. Rae would appreciate that it’s covert. She might even smirk a little, just at the corner of her lips. _Really, Armitage?_ Making fun of him. But she’d like it, he thinks. He wouldn’t have named his son for her if he didn’t think so. 

“He looks like you,” Ren says, so close to them both that he’s already shed sloppy tears onto not just Hux but Roan, too. 

“Furious and red?” Hux says.

“Determined and cute.”

Hux snorts; it comes out more wetly than he intended, and he grins against Ren’s lips when Ren leans in to kiss him. Roan whines, fidgets. Hux breaks away from Ren and kisses Roan’s forehead, shushes him. 

“We’re here,” Hux says, tears soaking his cheeks even while he’s sure he’s not actually crying: he’s grinning, content. The tears are some kind of aberration, and he doesn’t blame himself. He’s not weak, after all, whatever failures he’s known: he made a fucking person. “Don’t worry,” he says, whispering this against Roan’s forehead. “It’s not as bad as it seems out here. I promise. We’ll show you.”  

He looks over at Ren, wanting him to echo this. Ren shifts his eyes from the baby to Hux, takes a deep breath and nods. 

“Now’s the hard part,” Hux says, mouthing this as if it’s a secret.

Ren looks confused. Hux will explain what he means later. _Stay together, stay together_. Ren thinks it’s easy, ironically. Because he had it once, discarded it and found it again. As if it can always be thrown away and reclaimed, and maybe for Ren it can be. Hux is finding it only now. He closes his eyes, nuzzles Roan’s sweet-smelling head and tangles a hand in Ren’s hair. 

Hux tries to imagine where his mother is now. Ren’s mother, too. He’s not sure why it matters, but he wishes he had the Force at his disposal, that he could prod them both from a safe distance and say: _look_ and _he’s yours, too_ , then retreat. 

“I’m proud of you,” Ren says when Hux turns to look at him again. 

He’s sincere, probably the most earnest person Hux has ever known. Also a liar, but not at the moment. Hux kisses him, tastes the envy and the confusion and what Ren thinks is the great balance within the dark side: his love, the thing he’s chosen to do anything for. Hux grins against Ren’s lips and hopes Ren won’t feel it, that he won’t ask some question that Hux doesn’t want to answer. Even knowing almost nothing of the Force, Hux now feels certain of one thing, as if holding Roan in his arms has enlightened him in this discipline. 

There is no Dark, no Light. Those are words that can be ascribed to almost anything, from the perspective of the person who wants to be one or the other. Death and Life would be better, but they’re also too broad. 

“You’re glowing,” Ren says. He sounds a little worried about it this time.

“Yes,” Hux says. He buries his face against Roan’s fragrant head and feels, like he always hoped he would, briefly invincible. It’s double-sided: brief, nothing, instantly ready to be destroyed. But impenetrable, too. Unchangeable already, because he felt it, and it was real. 

 

**


	2. Chapter 2

Waking in the middle of what’s normally a rest cycle and preparing to depart the ship puts Hux in mind of his earliest missions as a senior cadet, and he’s not fond of the association. Ren is asleep beside him in their dark bedroom, but his presence doesn’t offer the usual measure of comfort. Ren has no trepidation about the mission they’re about to undertake; in his opinion it’s overdue. Roan is purely ecstatic, probably already awake in his little bed and beaming at the ceiling, waiting to be summoned for their departure. It concerns Hux that his son doesn’t seem to understand what fear is, though Hux is the one who has sheltered him from it. 

Hux sits up in bed and rubs his hand over Ren’s bare shoulder. Despite his Force-sent intuition and superior senses, it takes Ren some time to fully achieve consciousness. He’s at least technically awake, groaning and rolling onto his back. 

“You still don’t think we need to take a guard?” Hux says when Ren blinks at him and gropes for his waist. “Just one, for moments when you and I are distracted--” 

“No distraction could keep me from my duty.” Ren rolls onto his side again and mouths at the soft skin over Hux’s hip, not taking this seriously. “You know I’m strongest when I’m protecting you two,” he adds with some heat, maybe sensing Hux’s annoyance.   

“Yes.” Hux fidgets in place, not sure if he wants to give in to Ren’s attentions or dismiss them in favor of rechecking the inventory of supplies they’re bringing to Sween. “But we’ve never--” 

“We have. The space station. That moon.”

“But not a planet.” 

For months Hux has been unhappily preoccupied with the fact that Roan will finally walk beneath the uncaring rays of an organic sun. He’s had nightmares about retribution since the firing of Starkiller, suns featuring heavily in the torments that await him there, and having a son has only poured accelerant onto the flames of his fear of the kind of fatalist destiny he doesn’t really believe in and which Ren assures him has not been foretold by the Force. At least not yet. The fact that _son_ and _sun_ share a pronunciation in Basic hasn’t escaped him, meanwhile.

“You need to take something,” Ren says. He sits up and pushes his hair off his face with both hands, seeming to give up on a pre-shore leave fuck. “Just for the journey. It’ll help. Your mind is spinning, you’re making me dizzy.” 

“You could just stay out of it.” Hux throws the blankets away and stands from the bed. “If I take a stim, you’ve got to let me bring a guard. It seems mad not to station someone at the residence, at least.” 

“What’s a guard going to do that I can’t?” 

“I meant one of yours, the Knights--”

“I know what you meant. It’s still unnecessary. Pointless. And you know Roan’s scared of them.” 

Hux supposes that’s true, and he’s heartened by the reminder that Roan is at least afraid of something. The Knights are only in his presence rarely, and Roan shares Hux’s dislike for what can’t be clearly explained to him, which will be a problem in the future in other respects. For now Hux sympathizes with Roan’s inability to fully accept that the Knights are benevolent creatures as long as they’re under Ren’s command. Hux has grown to trust them and to see them as extensions of Ren himself, but they’re still unnerving in their faceless silence. 

“I’m gonna wake him up,” Ren says, stepping into his leggings on the other side of the bed. 

“He’s probably already bouncing off the walls.” 

They had a hard time getting him to sleep at the start of their rest cycle. Roan has been bursting with questions about Sween since they told him they would be visiting the temperate, out of the way planet for a family excursion. The very idea of a holiday is new to Roan, and it might as well be new for Hux, so long has it been since he allowed himself one. With the exception of his brief and unofficial paternity leave, the blurry weekend of Roan’s conception was the last time he got away from his duties for more than a day. 

Hux trails Ren to Roan’s room, not wanting to miss this part of their shared milestone: preparing for a family trip. Hux’s stomach is pinched up with nerves but also with excitement. The latter increases when they open Roan’s door and see that he’s indeed awake, grinning and looking up from the oversized data pad that’s resting on his knees. 

“Is it time to go?” he asks, letting the device topple onto his mussed blankets. 

“Yep,” Ren says.

“Almost,” Hux amends. He walks in to collect the data pad and a few other things that Roan will want once they’re away: his stuffed seaguin, the pillow from his bed, the pair of little slippers he wears with his pajamas. “I see you’ve already dressed,” Hux says, charmed by this. Like him, Roan prefers to be prepared, and though he’s only five years old he already possesses what Hux considers to be remarkable foresight. 

“I’m all ready!” Roan says, and he laughs when Ren lifts him from the bed and kisses his ear, spinning him around a few times before holding him at his side. 

Hux busies himself with packing the data pad and other items into Roan’s bag, part of him wanting protest that Roan is too old now to be held and carted around like a baby. Brendol would have sputtered with rage at the very thought, and though Hux has no interest in repeating the horrors of his own upbringing he does want Roan to be tough enough for reality when the time comes to face it, someday. But he can’t bring himself to draw the line here, at five years old. Hux commanded his own brutal army of sorts at that age. It’s not a childhood he would particularly recommend for anyone, let alone his beaming, still innocent baby. He shoulders Roan’s bag and walks over to kiss his cheek while Ren goes on holding him, probably planning to carry him all the way to their transport. Roan has yet to protest Ren’s coddling, even when he’s moody. He clings to Ren now as usual, his little arms around Ren’s neck and both feet kicking out with excess energy. 

“Can I have lace ice when we get there?” Roan asks. 

“It’ll be breakfast time,” Hux says. “Lace ice is a dessert.” 

“But it’s our vacation,” Ren says. “That means no food rules.” 

“Yay!” 

“He’s teasing,” Hux says, giving Ren a look. “There are always rules. Remember all the ones we went over, about safety--” 

“Never turn your back on the ocean,” Roan recites dutifully. As if Ren and Hux won’t be hovering around him as soon as he’s anywhere near it. Hux thought it best to teach him the basics regardless. “Can we go swimming right away?”

“Mhmm, we’ll have to see what the conditions are.” 

“The house has a pool,” Ren says. 

“But I’ve already swum in a pool before.” 

“Let’s get moving,” Hux says, ushering both of them toward the doorway. “We’ll reassess the swimming plan once we’re there.” 

The preparations for this trip have been vast, and though Hux has been looking forward to it, there’s an uneasy part of him that also wants to get it over with. Roan has had swimming lessons for months, the security situation on Sween has been evaluated and reevaluated to the nth degree, and Hux has meticulously arranged for his duties aboard the _Glory_ to either be handled by Commander Trice, his protege, or personally overseen by him from afar. He can’t stop working entirely for five whole days, however much Roan would like it. 

Ren carries all the bags that aren’t Roan’s, and Hux is glad that this necessitates setting Roan down so he can walk on his own. Ren might have used the Force to transport the baggage to their shuttle, but the sight of the three of them moving through the hallways of the _Glory_ together is conspicuous enough without a cohort of luggage floating around them. Hux has become accustomed to the idea that they’re safe here, that the crew of the _Glory_ is like an extended family of sorts, and he trusts Ren’s Force-based reports that their little family is well-liked if not worshipfully adored by those who serve them. He hasn’t dared to call himself Emperor yet, and he did away with the Supreme Leader title because of its associations with Snoke, whose poor reputation helped a great deal at the start of Hux’s more transparent reign. He’s Fleet Admiral Hux, technically, but with Ren at his side and the Knights behind them he’s something far more fearsome, too, and not entirely transparent. He’s the designer of the _Glory_ and the ship disabling weapons that have made the Order stronger and sent the Resistance into hiding for over three years now. Some say he’s Emperor in all but name, and it’s hard to argue that he’s not the leader of the galaxy by default. 

Hux longs for a kind of ultimate security he wouldn’t have even with the title Palpatine once held. All reigns end. He simply wants to hold onto his for as long as it takes to give Roan the life he deserves: peaceful, well-ordered, and long outlasting Hux’s own. 

“You’re still tense,” Ren mutters when they’re aboard the shuttle, Ren piloting and Hux leaning over his shoulder to check coordinates while Roan remains buckled into his seat behind them. 

“What do you want from me?” Hux asks. “I’m not taking a stim, that’ll just put me to sleep. I’ll be fine once we get there.” 

Ren makes a doubtful noise and turns to kiss Hux’s cheek. “Buckle in,” he says. “We’re jumping straight into hyperspace.” 

“Yes!” Roan says. He’s never experienced it before. 

Hux does as Ren asked, taking his seat beside Roan’s. The first hyperspace jump Hux can remember from his childhood was an escape maneuver aboard a rickety old Imperial supply ship that was sneaking away shamefully in the aftermath of what had happened on Endor. He takes Roan’s hand and squeezes it, his chest aching with something like gratitude for the fact that his son will never have to endure such a thing. Hopefully.

“Hold on to your butts,” Ren says, gripping the hyperspace throttle. 

Roan laughs. He loves Ren’s jokes as much as his affection. It pains Hux to think that someday Roan will be a buttoned-up teenager who knows that Ren isn’t his biological father, but that’s the last thing Hux needs on his mind right now. They still have a few years before those kinds of questions come, surely.

The journey to Sween goes as planned and is blessedly brief. Roan strains against seat belt as soon as they leave hyperspace, peering ahead at the front viewport as if the stars in this quadrant of space will look different from the ones he can see from the _Glory_. Hux allows him to unbuckle when they’re close to the planet, so he can see its pretty blues and pinks more clearly. Now Hux is the one who reaches down and hoists Roan up into his arms, holding him snug against his hip. 

“That’s the ocean,” Roan says, eyes wide as they draw closer to the swirling blues below.

“It’s one ocean,” Hux says. “There are many, all over the galaxy. Most habitable planets have one.” 

“He knows that,” Ren says. 

“Yeah,” Roan says softly, still transfixed. He turns to Hux. “Can I see them all?” he asks. 

“You could try.” Hux doesn’t like the idea. “But there are millions of them, and for the most part they all look the same.” 

“Don’t tell him that,” Ren says. 

“Why not? It’s true, to my knowledge.” 

“But you’re taking the romance out of it.”

Hux huffs at the mention of romance. He returns to his seat when they enter atmo, holding Roan in his lap. He can’t judge Ren too harshly for still wanting to cuddle their son close like he’s a younger child. Hux had once sincerely assumed he’d be fine with leaving his baby in the lap of a nanny droid, for practical purposes, but he had a hard time even relinquishing Roan into Ren’s arms at first. The feeling of having Roan close is like nothing else Hux has ever known; even his most intense clinging to Ren has never felt like such an unshakable confirmation that Hux is where he should be, in close company with this little person he made, protecting what matters most in the galaxy.  

“Will we land in the ocean?” Roan asks when they’re through atmo and everything they can see is pale blue, waves cresting calmly out in the depths. 

“Nope,” Ren says, righting the shuttle so that they’re parallel to land. “But I could, if we needed to.” 

“Ren’s an excellent pilot,” Hux says, hoping he doesn’t sound too sarcastic. It’s true, anyway. “He could land anywhere,” he adds when Ren meets his eyes in the viewport’s reflection. 

“Will I be a pilot?” Roan asks.

“Of course,” Ren says.

“Mhmm.” Hux shifts Roan in his lap, picturing him still five years old and piloting a TIE fighter. Ren has claimed Anakin Skywalker was already doing such things around this age. “Maybe,” Hux says when Roan peers up at him. “You’ll learn to fly, naturally. But that’s just one of many skills. To limit yourself to piloting would be a waste of your other talents.” 

Roan nods but looks a little lost. He turns back toward the viewport to watch Ren land the shuttle, his head resting against Hux’s chest. Hux pets his hair, which is still reddish brown, thicker than Hux’s. They resemble each other in most other ways. Roan’s skin isn’t quite as pale, and his nose is wider, but he has Hux’s green eyes and skinny frame, Hux’s cheekbones and what Ren describes as his prim mouth. Hux occasionally tries to recall Roan’s biological father in detail, for Roan’s sake. He mostly remembers a broad chest and sturdy shoulders, brown eyes. The man looked at least a little bit like Ren, which was not a coincidence when Hux was heartsick and drunk and looking to get laid, missing the real Ren more than he ever would have admitted. Hux sometimes wishes that he could recall a name, but he’s fairly sure he never knew it. One of his many fears having to do with fatherhood is that the man will catch wind of Hux’s propaganda-fueled deception and show up claiming the Fleet Admiral’s child is his, exposing the lie Hux has floated about Ren using the Force to give him a son. Hux hopes the man knows better, whoever he is. He would have to be disposed of if he ever dared such claims. It’s an unpleasant thought. 

He hugs Roan more tightly as they come to a smooth stop on the shuttle’s landing pad, just outside of the residence they’re using for the week. The beachside house is smallish, nondescript, but as spotlessly clean and cozy as it looked in the holos. Ren found it, just as he found Sween and assured Hux that both are safe for their little window of family time. There are three bedrooms in back, and the rest of the rooms are organized into an open floor plan that faces a wall of transperisteel looking out over the pool deck and the beach. Tall sea grass lines the gentle sand dunes beyond the patio, and only an unpaved footpath leads away from the house’s front door, toward the little town that’s half an hour away even by shuttle. 

Roan runs through every room and looks out every sunny window, breathless with wonder just for being in a place like this: no cold durasteel, recirculated air or stormtroopers marching through the hallways. They moved onto the _Glory_ as soon as its construction was complete, when Roan was three years old. Hux had a simu chamber installed there, complete with vitamin functionality to simulate sunlight and provide nutrients. It’s one of those small details that’s made him a popular leader aboard his own ship, as he allows his officers and the occasional stormtrooper who’s earned a reward to use it. But like so many of his recent achievements, it’s always really been for Roan. 

“Does it feel different?” Hux asks when they’re on the little house’s back patio, near the rectangular pool that’s framed by planters overflowing with colorful flora and surrounded by sandblasted stone tiles. 

“Different?” Roan says, looking up from the planter where he’s been examining a delicate fern. 

“The sun.” Hux squints up at it, shading his eyes and blinking, feeling a bit like he’s sizing up an enemy. Two more minutes of freestyle exploration and they’ll both have to go in and apply screenslick. “I wonder if it feels very different from the simu chamber, to you? I could have our tech there upgraded, if this is very jarring, if it’s nothing like the virtual version.” 

“It’s just warm,” Roan says, shrugging. He beckons Hux over. “Feel this,” he says. “It’s a plant like a feather. Can it feel me, too?”

“No, this species isn’t sentient.” Hux turns back to check the location of Ren, who insisted on making celebratory drinks upon arrival. Roan protests the loss of his attention and Hux gives in, kneeling beside him to feel the fern. “Magnificent,” he says, which makes Roan laugh. 

“Can we swim now?” he asks. 

“Not yet. You need a protective slather.” Hux wrinkles his nose. “I don’t remember the ocean smelling this strongly. I suppose it didn’t, on Arkanis.” 

“Can we go there, too?” 

“You wouldn’t like it.” 

“Yes, I would. You were little there?”

“I was all sorts of ages there, but that’s not reason enough to like a place. It’s a dump and it’s always raining. Come on, we’ll get you suited up for swimming.” 

“Suited up,” Roan repeats, with approval. He takes Hux’s hand and allows him to lead him back into the house. 

Ren has finished making their drinks: some kind of sweet fruit concoction made in a blender. The house came fully stocked with food and drink, according to Hux’s instructions. Ren adds a dash of rum to his and Hux’s drinks after handing Roan’s over. He’s assured Hux that he’s powerful enough now to sense the slightest ripple of potential danger from a system away, cocktail hour or not, but the sight of Ren being so relaxed makes Hux want to call down the guards despite his trust in Ren’s abilities. Ren’s powers have sharpened and expanded since he killed Snoke, and his theory that having a family to protect would make him stronger seems proven. The increased scope and accuracy of Ren’s connection to the Force is a large part of how successful the Order has been under Hux’s sole command. 

Still, Hux waits for some crushing retribution that has yet to come. He trusts Ren absolutely, believes in the strength of his powers, but he can’t bring himself to trust this peace they’ve found or shake the sense that the galaxy is going to call in the unpayable debt he owes someday.

It’s not the kind of preoccupation he would have indulged before becoming a father, but now it seems criminal to ignore these suspicions that something might be coming and that he should always have the corner of his eye focused on potential disaster, whatever Ren says. Even Snoke’s death seems like a too-simple sleight of hand to him at times. He gulps his drink down, feeling Ren’s attention to his paranoid state of mind surrounding him like an insulating tent of concern. It’s comforting, but stifling, too. 

“Can we swim now?” Roan asks, breathless from finishing this drink too quickly, his mouth stained pink. “In the ocean, I mean,” he says before either of them can answer. 

“Looks calm enough to me,” Ren says, casting a glance toward the kitchen windows. 

“Screenslick first,” Hux says. He points toward the bedroom where they deposited Roan’s things, though Hux won’t be able to sleep in this calm but strange place unless Roan is curled up between them in the master bedroom. When Roan was an infant it seemed impossible for him to not sleep there, sheltered in the valley that their chests and shoulders made around him, and Hux is still embarrassed by the memory of how difficult it was for him to eventually allow Roan to sleep in another room entirely. It’s to do with the unexpectedness of Roan’s arrival in Hux’s life, he theorizes. There’s something about having Roan that will always seem surreal in the way that things too good to be true are, and Hux guards his good fortune greedily. 

Screenslick applied, they head out to the beach, marching over very fine sand to the soft foam of the shore break. Sween was selected for its reliably calm seas, and there’s no one around for miles as far as Hux can see, just rows of tall, thin trees along the edge of the beach, waving in the breeze. Part of the reason Hux agreed to this location as opposed to several similarly secure and remote options is that it reminds him of the pictures he saw of Scarif in history holos as a boy. Scarif had always looked to him like a place of possibility and prosperity, harkening back to better days for the Empire. This place looks like the promise of the kind of future that Hux struggles to believe he’s already living in: a time of security, of shoring up defenses as opposed to struggling through conflict after conflict with radicals. 

The sky is pale and free of clouds, the warmth of the sun gentle on their shoulders. Hux wishes his heart wasn’t pounding as he watches Ren carry Roan into the water. It’s ridiculous that he’s become like this, and Ren’s fault entirely. Hux has been asked again and again to trust that, for all his military safeguards, it’s Ren’s powers that really protect them. He believes it in the most fundamental way, but there is some rogue holdout terror in him that won’t accept it fully, however many years pass. His jaw is tight as he swims into the clear, shallow water behind Roan and Ren, every muscle braced for a confrontation with some unseen danger. Only when he reaches them and braces his hands on Ren’s wet shoulders does he consider that this is his first time in an ocean since he was a teenager.

“It _does_ taste like salt,” Roan says, wincing but delighted. 

“Did you doubt our reports?” Hux asks. 

“No, but it’s weird.”

“Careful you don’t get it in your eyes, it will burn.” 

Roan swims in circles around them and Hux hugs himself to Ren’s back, his chin on Ren’s shoulder as they both turn in corresponding circles, watching him. Hux flinches at moments, when even the gentlest of waves brush Roan’s cheeks. Ren sends what feels like answering Force waves of calm back toward him, or maybe it’s just the reassuring pressure of his big hands under the water, reaching back to squeeze Hux’s thighs when he tenses. Ren has always been less cautious about introducing Roan to the real world. _Because you didn’t make him_ , Hux wants to say but won’t; it’s too cruel. He grits his teeth when he watches Ren allowing Roan to explore, holds his tongue when Ren teaches him the beginnings of combat theory. _You didn’t grow him bone by bone_. Ren probably senses it, even if Hux doesn’t say it. Hux kisses the stubble at Ren’s jaw, apologetic. 

“Look at that form,” Ren says, catching Roan when he begins to tire. “Amazing. You’re a natural.” 

“A natural swimmer?” Roan is short of breath, grinning.

“Obviously,” Ren says. “Look, you see that spray out there in the distance? I think it’s a buoy fish.” 

“Like in the holos?” Roan whirls to look, craning his neck. “Where, ah-- I don’t see.” 

“Ren is cheating,” Hux says. “Using the Force.” 

“Oh.” Roan often dampens a little at mentions of the Force; he doesn’t understand why he can’t use it, too. Hux tries to comfort him with expressions of solidarity, usually in vain. 

“There!” Ren shouts, pointing, and Hux sees it this time, too: a dorsal blow in the distance, the sun glinting off the long back of a buoy fish before it disappears beneath the water again. 

“Let’s go out there!” Roan says, bouncing in Ren’s grip. “Can we?” 

“I think it’s too far,” Ren says. “But tomorrow we can take a boat out.” 

When he’s had enough of the sun, Hux sets up an umbrella he brought down from the house and lounges beneath it with his data pad balanced against his leg, half-watching Ren and Roan build sand structures near the shoreline. Trice is reporting to Hux every half hour as commanded, and it seems all is well back on the _Glory_. He intentionally selected a traditionally low-conflict time of year for this escape from routine, but he feels arrogant for assuming that he can predict what’s coming down the pike for the Order, even with Ren’s help. 

_It’s like the more you have, the less you’ll let yourself enjoy it_. This was Ren’s accusation during a fight, years ago, and Hux still hears the echo of it bouncing around in his head. Roan had been about a year old, and Hux’s plans were going so smoothly. Too smoothly, he was sure. He’d been a wreck, looking for cracks, sure that he’d missed something, skipping his rest cycles because nightmares of a fatal, near-invisible flaw were haunting him there. Hux never felt like he’d stolen most of what he had before Roan came along and seemed like the one true thing he’d actually earned, or at least nurtured with his own sweat and blood as opposed to that of others. Ren understands how it’s changed him; raising a child has changed Ren, too, of course. It doesn’t stop his frustration when he judges that Hux is going overboard with worry. 

“I should have known this would be more like a punishment than a reward for you,” Ren says when Roan is asleep on the blanket where they’re all resting in the umbrella’s shade, worn out from hours of swimming and sandcraft. 

Hux grunts, not wanting to get into it while he watches his baby sleeping. His data pad is also resting on the blanket within arm’s reach, its screen confirming that everything is as it should be back home. Ren is stretched out behind Hux, still warm from the sun, kissing Hux’s shoulder and then his neck in a way that makes Hux mourn for the fact that they might not have a private moment for sex until they’re back on the ship. 

“I tried to make use of our last minutes of alone time together this morning,” Ren says, sensing this. His lips are moving on Hux’s neck, and it’s nice, enough to make Hux melt down completely onto the blanket. “You weren’t having it.” 

“Sorry,” Hux says. “I do try. You know this is all alien to me. Holidays, lounging about. Being planetside without some diplomat’s arse to kiss.” 

“Your mind is still racing.” Ren runs his fingers through Hux’s hair as if he can calm his thoughts this way, through osmosis. “You even hate the fresh air, I can feel it.” 

“I don’t hate it, it’s just-- I’m not accustomed.” 

“I remember when you weren’t accustomed to this either.” Ren runs his fingertips down over Hux’s neck and shoulder, along his arm. Hux shivers and tries to recall a time when he didn’t know what it was like to be touched like this. He didn’t even understand it as something beyond sexual when Ren first offered soft caresses and lingering closeness after they’d both ‘completed,’ which was what Hux used to call orgasms. The term had made Ren howl with laughter the first time he heard it. 

“I love you,” Hux says, murmuring this as his eyes fall shut, Ren’s breath hot against his ear. It’s a spontaneous and rare declaration, though Hux has now had lots of practice saying it to Roan. That’s different, easier, and he can feel Ren’s surprise, his heart beating a little faster against Hux’s back. Hux turns his face toward Ren’s and blinks up at him sleepily. “Funny I used to think you were the one who made everything needlessly difficult. I know it’s me now. Thank you, just-- Thanks for putting up with it. With me. We both need you so much. But of course you know that.” 

“Hux.” Ren slides his arm across Hux’s chest and checks that Roan is still sound asleep before giving Hux a hot kiss on the mouth, his powerful heartbeat pumping a little faster. “Are you sun drunk?” he asks, stroking Hux’s cheek. 

“Oh, shut up. Probably, but I mean it.” 

“I know-- Mmph.” Ren buries his face against Hux’s throat and hugs him closer. “Love you,” he says, voice muffled. “Wanted this so much. It’ll be great, I promise.” 

“It’s already quite lovely. If I close my eyes for a moment, will you--”

“Of course.” 

Hux feels a bit stupid for asking, but he’s drifting already, his nonessential systems going offline. Of course Ren will watch over them. Between Ren’s steady breath and the soft breeze across the beach, Hux feels suspended in a kind of humming place outside of time, or at least outside of his regular days of structure and icy shipbound air. Even the windblown skitter of sand across his skin isn’t too annoying to keep him awake. He reaches over to cover Roan’s little hands with his own and flexes back against Ren, ignoring the impulse to be afraid that he can’t ever turn his back on the ocean that will always be behind him: the past, what he’s done, the bottomless spectre of loss that he risks by daring to have a family along with everything else. All of that will always be at his back, but Ren is closer, curled right up against Hux’s skin, standing guard between him and whatever might come.

Once he’s sleeping more deeply a dream pokes through his calm, sharp and angry like a sunburn. In it they’re not on Sween but on Scarif, and it’s all going up in flame and smoke. They’re on a war-torn beach, the sky above clogged with firing ships and debris that rains down from midair explosions. Hux is holding Roan, screaming at Ren, telling him to use the Force to stop the planet’s destruction, _please_. In the distance, the sun fades to a withering red dot.

“I can’t,” Ren says, dropping to his knees in the sand, face soaked with tears. “Hux, I’m sorry, I can’t-- It’s the one thing I can’t do.” 

A blast of pure, furious destruction races across Scarif’s ocean and consumes the entire scene, snapping Hux awake when a cloud of violent dust collides with him in the dream. 

He blinks awake to the unfamiliar landscape of the umbrella overhead, cheerful colors stretched out in fabric triangles. Before he even registers where he is, he remembers that Ren and Roan should be here and sees that they aren’t. 

He bolts upright and holds his breath until he spots them: at the edge of the water, Ren kneeling down to examine a shell that Roan holds in his palm. Hux exhales and rubs his hand over his face, through his hair. Both feel dirty from the sand. He catches the look Ren gives him, feels Ren sensing his dream-related distress. Hux shrugs one shoulder. It’s not the worst dream he’s had, and he knew some bad ones were inevitable during this adventure. He’s a creature of routine. Any alteration puts him on edge. 

Storm clouds are gathering on the western end of the beach, and the sun has begun to set out over the water. Hux takes down the umbrella and gathers the rest of their things. Roan comes running over to show him the shell when he sees that he’s awake. 

“Daddy says a mudcrawler lived in this,” Roan says, cupping the shell in both hands like it’s a sacred relic. 

“That’s what we called them on Chandrila, anyway,” Ren says, walking up behind him. Hux looks at Ren and lifts his eyebrows, surprised by the mention of his past life. Roan is already curious about what their childhoods were like, and they’ve made some vague allusions to Ren’s upbringing outside of the Order, but place names haven’t factored into it yet. 

“Chandrila,” Roan says, pronouncing this with wonder and looking back and forth between Ren and Hux. “What’s that?”

“A planet,” Hux says.

“I lived there once,” Ren says. “Near an ocean. When you pulled fishing traps up they’d be covered with mudcrawlers.”

“Didn’t realize you’d done much fishing in your youth,” Hux says, surprised again. He hasn’t heard many details about that time in Ren’s life himself. Ren’s parents are still a sore subject that rarely comes up even when he’s alone with Hux, as if any mention of them might reawaken some slumbering curse. Hux can sympathize. Roan doesn’t know much about Hux’s parents, and it bothers Hux to think that some day he’ll learn all of it. 

“Can we fish?” Roan asks, blessedly more interested in the present for now. “On the boat, tomorrow, can we?”

“Yep.” Ren lifts Roan up and carries him toward the house, holding him with one arm and slinging the other around Hux’s shoulders. “We can even eat what we catch.” 

“Will it taste good?” Roan asks, wrinkling his nose. 

“Of course it will. You know you look just like your Papa when you make that face.” 

“What face?” Roan asks, grinning. He’s still young enough to find comparisons to Hux flattering. 

“The face you make when you doubt the deliciousness of freshly caught fish.” 

“It’s good he’s inherited my skepticism,” Hux says. “It will serve him well.” 

Hux has to explain the meaning of skepticism to Roan as they make their way into the house. On the beach, the heavy clouds have drawn closer, and Hux can smell the oncoming rain. It’s all according to what he expected when he reviewed reports on the coastal environment here: rain in the evening, pouring hard but briefly, clearing to expose the stars overhead after the dinner hour. 

Ren insists on cooking something himself rather than turning on the service droid that’s currently powered off in the pantry. Apparently it was an Organa-Solo family tradition to eschew the use of droids during family trips. Hux is always surprised when Ren wants to adhere to any of his family’s customs, though by now he shouldn’t be. Ren has raised Roan like a Republic-dweller, with ample affection and indulging encouragement. Hux can never bring himself to protest. It feels right to be gentle with someone so precious, and to behave as if Roan’s every minor achievement deserves celebration. Everything Hux was taught about childrearing said otherwise, but in practice it’s the things Ren believes in that make sense, and memories of Hux’s own upbringing seem increasingly outrageous by comparison. Hux has never met anyone, even in the most backworld dregs of the Order’s ranks, who was asked to command a pack of feral, murderous children while he was still learning to read. Rae had told him it was because he was exceptional. That she wouldn’t have mentored anyone but a peerless pupil who could handle immense responsibility at a young age. But he’d seen the pity in her eyes even then. 

“Papa,” Roan says, pulling Hux back to the present. Roan is in his bath, lingering with his floating ships and flimsiplast sea creatures while Hux sits beside the tub and waits for his turn to clean up. “Are you still sleepy?” Roan asks, his soapy hand going to Hux’s elbow when he rests it on the rim of the tub. 

“Not sleepy,” Hux says. “Just thinking. Sorry, love. What were you saying?”

“Does my name start with R and end with N because Daddy’s does, too?”

Hux laughs. “No. It’s just a coincidence.” He thinks of Rae again and wonders how Roan will take it, someday, when Hux explains about his namesake. “Why shouldn’t your name start with an A and end with an E like mine does, if that were the case?”

“It doesn’t, though.” 

“Right, well-- Are you ready to get out? I need to wash up, too, I’ve got sand all over me.” 

Roan nods and climbs out of the tub, getting water everywhere. Hux wraps him in a towel and instructs him to go dress for dinner, sending him off with a kiss to his fragrant forehead. When he’s gone Hux collects the toys from the draining bathwater and sets them on the shelf that runs along the interior wall of the tub. He watches the soapy water disappearing and tries to picture the nanny droid that oversaw his own infant and toddler years dunking him into bathwater. He has some vague memories of padded durasteel fingers scrubbing his hair harshly, leaving his scalp throbbing, though that particular discomfort might have been due to the cheap shampoo Brendol provided. Unbidden, he thinks of his mother, wondering if she’s still alive and if she ever paid him a thought after leaving. He’s considered asking Ren to consult the Force on this subject, but he’s afraid he already knows the answer to the latter if not the former question. 

He’s able to scrub his sense of building melancholy off in the shower, and when he’s clean and dressed in loose pants and a t-shirt he’s feeling light on his feet in the manner he expects one should while on holiday, charmed by the rain that’s now falling only softly and by Ren’s attempt to make dinner. It’s a big, soppy pile of fried potatoes with cheese and scrambled sausage, the kind of thing Hux would order for breakfast as a cadet when he was hungover and allowed to eat off campus. 

Roan loves it, naturally, and his enthusiasm for the meal is infectious. Hux has to admit it brings back good memories of recovering with his fellow cadets and laughing about the previous night’s exploits. None of them could ever have pictured a life like the one Hux is leading now. Hux laughs at Roan’s comment that Ren should make this dish for the stormtroopers on their upcoming Appreciation Day, feeling as if he’s won some kind of game they were all playing back at the Academy, pretending at being confident that they were destined for grandeur. This feels more like grandeur to Hux than dining with the most ostentatious diplomats ever has, a treasure so vast it was once beyond his imagining. By the time they’re washing up he’s proud of himself: of course there was a generous helping of anxiety upon arrival, but he’s managed it, and he can feel Ren’s relief, too, when he comes up behind Hux at the sink and wraps around him. 

“When’s the last time you washed a dish?” Ren asks. “Fleet Admiral?” he adds, lowering his voice as if it’s a filthy pet name. Sometimes it is, coming from Ren. 

“Hmm,” Hux says. “I think it was a punishment at the Academy. I was fourteen or so.”

“How embarrassing that must have been. The Commandant's son helping the droids with the dishes.” 

Hux grunts and bumps his arse back against Ren, prompting him to move off. Roan is sitting at the base of the wall that faces the patio, watching with fasciation as the rain slides down over the flat pane of transperisteel while the ocean rolls in the distance, waves pounding the shore now that the evening tide has come in. Ren leaves Hux to the washing up and sits on the floor, lets Roan clamber into his lap. Hux half-listens as Roan rattles off a hundred questions about rain; some of Ren’s answers are less than scientific. When Hux turns from the sink they’ve opened the door to the back patio and Roan is sticking his arm out, smiling as the rain falls in a thin mist onto his upturned palm. Hux thinks of Arkanis, how fascinating the rain had been after years on Jakku and aboard starships. He’d grown weary of it quickly enough.

“What do you think?” he asks, walking over to join them.

“I like the smell,” Roan says. “Rain smells like-- The sky.” 

“Sometimes rain is dangerous,” Ren says. “On certain planets.”

“Why’s it dangerous?” 

“Can’t you guess?” Hux asks before Ren can answer. 

“Um. Because not all planets are safe? For humans?” 

Roan doesn’t know about his Dissonian heritage yet. It’s not that Hux is ashamed. Having Roan makes him proud above all, as his Dissonian genes allowed for this miracle. But with that information, other questions might come.

“That’s right,” Hux says, touching Roan’s head. “And the rain that falls in those atmospheres can have acid or all other sorts of poisons in it.”

“But there’s nothing like that here,” Ren says. 

“Of course not,” Hux says, glad when Roan steps back inside and wipes his wet hand on his shirt. Hux closes the door and activates the locking panel. “Are you ready for bed?” he asks. “It’s been an eventful day.” 

“Eventful,” Roan agrees, and he hugs himself around Hux’s legs, peering up at him. “Can we do a story first?” 

Ren was the one who started the tradition of stories before bed, and Hux used to listen with interest himself, amused and occasionally enchanted by Ren’s efforts. He assumed this would always be Ren’s duty, but at some point Ren claimed to have run out of stories, confessing privately to Hux that he’d actually just run out of happy ones. Hux had to take up the mantle himself then, and he was clumsy with it at first but has come to enjoy it. He’s always been good at inventing things. 

“A long time ago,” Hux says, beginning as usual with this refrain when he’s stretched out in the massive master bed beside Roan, “There was a family of magic users who ruled all the stars. They were proud and cruel and they stomped out any threat to their reign without mercy.” 

Hux thinks of young Leia Organa dressed all in white, staring sternly into a holo recorder as if facing death down without a flinch. She’s still out there somewhere, according to their research. Hux hasn’t explicitly asked Ren to use the Force to track her down, but he assumes that Ren has her tucked away in his inventory of unsaid knowledge, and that she’s far enough from them not to present a threat, military or otherwise. 

“Many tried to topple the magic users’ kingdom,” Hux says when Roan squirms closer. He always likes it when the villains are introduced first. “But they had special powers that made them impossible to defeat. Or so people thought, until one warrior set forth to infiltrate their kingdom in an attempt to outsmart them.”

“What did the warrior look like?” Roan asks. 

Hux smirks, feeling as if he’s been called out. He was picturing himself: younger, more arrogant, standing up to the Republic, the Senate, five planets that held most of their weapons. Pouring over schematics in an attempt to reduce it all to dust.

“He looked like us,” Hux says. “Human, a bit thin, with no powers beyond his intelligence and determination. When he enacted his bold plan, he was caught by the son of the magical queen. This prince was a very powerful magic user, even more so than his mother. The prince fought with the warrior and nearly crushed him, but just before he could something happened that changed everything.” 

“What happened?”

“The warrior and the prince were locked in close combat. The warrior’s sword had snapped in two against the prince’s powers and he was defending himself only with a broken shard, quickly losing the last of his mortal strength. The prince bore down harder and grit his teeth, narrowed his eyes and looked into the eyes of the warrior. He had been prepared to deliver the deathblow, to dispose of this intruder who had disrespected his family. The prince had destroyed many mortal warriors in the past, on orders from his mother, and he had never felt the slightest remorse. But the longer the prince held the gaze of this warrior, this day, the more he realized he could not kill him.”

“Why not?”

“Because the prince admired how desperately this warrior had fought, despite the hopeless nature of his quest. He was fascinated by how deeply this adversary believed that a mere mortal like him would someday would reclaim the stars from the tyranny of the magic users. This warrior was somehow different from all those the prince had defeated before. ‘He’s like me,’ the prince realized, though they came from worlds that could not have been more dissimilar. ‘Why won’t you kill me?’ the warrior asked when the prince had hesitated for so long that the rage had drained from his eyes. ‘Because the galaxy would not be better without you,’ the prince said. ‘In fact it would be unbearable.’” 

“I don’t get it,” Roan says, his cheek resting on Hux’s forearm now. 

“They fell in love,” Hux says, turning his palms over as if admitting defeat. It’s not a rational story, but it’s a true one. 

“But they were enemies!” 

“They were told that they should be. But in the heat of combat they recognized each other. They both wanted to stay close to such a worthy opponent. Love is stronger than the most powerful magic. It also makes no sense. That’s the moral of the story.” 

Roan considers this, brow pinching slightly. He tugs on Hux’s sleeve. “Papa?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.” 

“Oh, come here, darling.” Hux rolls Roan into his arms and kisses the top of his head, the force of his adoration like a physical knob that turns in his chest, aching in a way that’s so good, so terrifying. “I love you so much,” he says, scooting down to rest his head on the pillow beside Roan’s. “That’s what keeps us safe, you know?” He thinks of what Ren said once, when Hux was pregnant, after he’d tried to articulate a rambling love confession: the dark side of the Force draws power from the selfish nature of love. Hux would tear everything to the ground for Roan without thinking twice. “The queen in this story knows that love is very powerful,” he says, lowering his voice as if this is a secret. “So when she finds out that her son the prince has run off with a warrior who seeks to defeat her, she vows to have her revenge.” 

“Does she hurt them?”

“She tries to, but they’re quite cunning. You look sleepy. I think you’ll have to hear the rest tomorrow. It’s a long story with many complications.” 

“Complications?” Roan yawns and adjusts against the pillow, seeming to accept this hiatus in the narrative. 

“Yes, love is always complicated. Well, romantic love. The other kind, this bit that you and I have, the family sort-- That’s the simplest thing there is.” 

“Mhm.” Roan’s eyes are closed. He’s bored by talk of love, as children who know they’re adored should be. Hux congratulates himself for telling a story that lulled his baby promptly to sleep and kisses the tip of Roan’s nose as he brings the blankets up to cover his little shoulder. 

“You’re perfect,” Hux says, whispering. He’s been saying it to Roan just before sleep since he was only a few hours old. Roan sighs, his hand twitching on the pillow.

Hux leaves the light in the en suite fresher on and closes the master bedroom door behind him as he slips back into the dark living area. Ren is stretched out on the sprawling divan, the light from the wall-mounted holo glowing over him. Hux laughs when he sees Ren is watching the local weather report.

“What?” Ren says. He pulls Hux into his arms as soon as he’s in reach. “It’s relevant to tomorrow’s plans.” 

“I’m not laughing at you,” Hux says, though he was. “Just at-- All this. Doesn’t it make you even a little jittery, daring an interlude like this? Tracking the weather for something other than mission parameters?”

“I’m not like you,” Ren says. “I was never told I couldn’t have everything I wanted.” 

“Sure you were.” Hux thinks of Snoke, that very short leash.

“Well, yeah, but I never managed to believe it for very long.” 

Hux rolls his eyes. He grins when he sees the bottle of rum floating in the air, on its way toward them from the kitchen with two glasses that bob a bit precariously behind it. 

“You can’t beat the spoiled prince out of a man, I suppose,” Hux says, reaching for one of the glasses when it hovers before him.   

“We’re not spoiled for having this.” Ren snatches the bottle of rum and nips at Hux’s ear. “And you’re not tempting fate by wanting it.” 

“Easy for you to say.”

“It’s not, actually. You don’t think I’m always waiting to relive my grandfather’s ruin? Or my uncle’s, my mother’s, my--” 

Ren stops himself before mentioning Han Solo and precisely what ruined him. He pours a drink for himself and one for Hux, shrugs. 

“Not on our watch,” Ren says, raising his glass to toast this. “Maybe if we’d been separated, like Snoke and everyone else would have liked. But we’re together. That’s how we’ve managed everything, right?”

“Right.” Hux clicks his glass against Ren’s and drinks. He clambers into Ren’s lap, not wanting to talk seriously anymore tonight. “So will the weather cooperate tomorrow, for boating and so forth?” 

“And so forth,” Ren says, smirking when Hux nips at his mouth for the mockery. “I don’t know, actually. Maybe in the afternoon. Morning might be a little rough on the water.” 

“We’ll entertain him in some other way then. He’s so-- I feel a bit monstrous for having kept him this long from real rain. I thought the simu chamber was really good, supposedly it’s top of the line--”

“You know nothing beats the real thing." Ren squeezes Hux’s arse as if his enjoyment of it is evidence of this truth. Hux smirks and drinks from his glass. He checks back over his shoulder before sliding his legs open around Ren’s waist and kissing him. “Don’t worry,” Ren says, muttering against Hux’s mouth. “He’s worn out from the day, fast asleep. We have some time.”

“Some time,” Hux says, mimicking Ren’s accent now. He grins against Ren’s attempt to bite his lip in retaliation. “But we haven’t got supplies.” 

“The kitchen is stocked with some very fine oils.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Hux mutters, though he’s feeling almost giddy enough to dare that. He grabs a velvety throw blanket from the back of the divan and drapes it around both their waists, concealing the fact that they’re starting to grind lazily together, though he knows Ren is right about Roan being out for the night after all that sun and exercise. 

“You climb into my lap and expect my mind not to go here?” Ren says. He drains his drink and sets the glass down beside the bottle, which is wedged in the crevasse between two of the divan’s giant cushions. When both his hands are free they go right to Hux’s arse, slipping easily inside the generous waistband of his pants and squeezing the bare cheeks, kneading and spreading. Hux writhes and pushes shallow gasps into Ren’s mouth, flushing. “Wanted you this morning,” Ren says, his fingers sneaking in deeper, teasing lower. “You were so tense, pulled tight. Wanted to get you all fucked open, nice and loose.” 

“Your eternal wish.” 

Hux checks over his shoulder again. They could go into one of the guest rooms, but Roan has always been a good sleeper. When he was an infant they would sneak out to the sofa in the main living area for quick, quiet fucks like this while he slumbered innocently in their bedroom. Hux is nostalgic about that time in his life, when he was still too tired and overwhelmed to be properly panicked about all that might go wrong, and more astonished by his sudden wealth of happiness than anything, drifting between feeling secure in Ren’s arms and keeping his baby safe in his own. 

“How about some mood music?” Ren says, already using the Force to open two of the high windows that line the sectioned transperisteel wall facing the ocean. The rain has stopped and the waves are crashing on the beach just outside. Hux is tempted to think this move is corny but can’t deny that the sound of that pounding power is intoxicating. It’s like being egged on by something reckless and huge but rhythmic, too, moving according to its own rules.

“I think I’m a bit drunk,” Hux says, laughing against Ren’s shoulder when he sees a narrow bottle of pinkish cooking oil approaching from the kitchen. 

“You’ve turned into a lightweight.” 

“Mhm, I suppose my hard drinking days are over. Are you really putting that inside me?” he asks, speaking more softly when the cap of the bottle of oil pops off as it arrives within Ren’s reach. 

“You’ve endured less dignified prep for the sake of getting this in you.” Ren lifts his hips, pressing his tented erection up against Hux’s. “And this stuff is high quality, I mean it. Won’t hurt you.” 

Hux clings to Ren’s neck and closes his eyes, listening to the waves and gasping when he feels Ren’s cool, slick fingers pressing his arse cheeks open wider. Hux reaches down to cinch the blanket around them more tightly, listening for any hint that Roan might be stirring. Knowing Ren would sense it well before he could, he abandons his vigilance and allows his head to loll onto Ren’s shoulder, his mouth falling open as one of Ren’s long, perfect fingers breaches him smoothly, pressing in deep. Hux runs his fingers through Ren’s hair and arches his back, riding the friction and wanting more already. It’s been almost a week since he had Ren inside him, the preparations for this trip having sucked up all of Hux’s already scant free time and energy. 

“So dutiful,” Ren says, breathing this against Hux’s parted lips. “Staying quiet while I play with your ass. And you’re desperate, fuck, I can feel it. Someday I’ll get you screaming for it like you used to.”

Hux huffs and clenches his arse, presses open-mouthed kisses along Ren’s jaw. The last time he screamed for it wasn’t all that long ago. They have regular unrestrained fucks during Roan’s scheduled class time. Hux does many of Roan’s lessons himself, but it’s important he be socialized with a group of carefully selected peers, and also somewhat important that his parents are able to fuck like maniacs while he’s elsewhere. The brief window allowed for this makes them as needy as teenagers who are sneaking away from their guardians for something illicit, and that’s how it feels now, too, even as they move quietly, carefully under the blanket. 

“Enough,” Hux says, reaching back to grab Ren’s wrist and slide his finger free. “Get that dick out for me, I need you.” 

“Yes, sir.” Ren smirks and opens for Hux’s hungry kiss, both hands working on freeing his dick and getting it wet for Hux. Something about kissing Ren like this without otherwise being touched by him is incredibly arousing, or maybe Hux is just so in need of this that any detail would stand out as intensely erotic at this point. The fabric of the throw blanket around the bare skin at the small of his back feels incredible, and even the flicker of light from the continuing weather reports on the silent holo behind him is titillating, a bit like the flash and glow from seedy bars in the red light districts where he’d gotten drunk as a cadet. “Your mind is all over the place again,” Ren says when Hux perches over the head of his cock, legs shaking and chest heaving. “In a good way now.” 

“So glad you approve.” 

Hux grabs Ren’s cock and begins to take his seat, swallowing the groan that wants to push out of him as he’s stretched wide. There’s pleasure in being quiet, too. Hux has always enjoyed a fuck that feels secret, hidden, slipped in outside of protocol. 

“My favorite kind, too,” Ren says. 

“You’re so bad,” Hux mutters. He rubs his face against Ren’s and luxuriates in every inch of him as he comes to a full seat, thighs spread wide. “Rooting around, _ahh_. In my head. Needing to be inside me all the time.” 

“I can’t help it. You’re the other half of me. And I like your head better than mine.” 

“Mmm, flimsy excuses.” 

Hux pulls back and meets Ren’s eyes, letting Ren see how muggy and sated he is already, his hips beginning a slow bounce. He tries moving in time with the waves but has never really been all that graceful, and soon he’s shunting himself down with clumsy need, burying his panted breath against the side of Ren’s throat. Ren’s hands are tight on his waist, and though Hux could allow Ren to hold the blanket around them with the Force, though they don’t really need the blanket at all and it’s in fact making them both sweat terribly, he likes the feeling of keeping it pulled tight around them with his own hands, concealing their lewd, desperate rutting. It feels like an admittance that this is a shameful indulgence, and Hux wouldn’t enjoy it as much if it didn’t have this sheen of forbidden trespass, at least in this moment.  

“Fuck, you need it so much,” Ren says, teeth grit because he’s close. “Everything, nnh, it just drops away, when I’m in you. All your bullshit and your doubts. You ride that cock like a fucking throne, Hux. Take what you need from that dick, _yeah_. Faster, like that, there you go--”

Ren makes a goofy snuffling noise when he comes, thrusting his face against Hux’s chest and moving his hands up to grip around Hux’s ribs with bruising intensity, as if his hold on Hux is keeping the powerful noise he wanted to make from bursting forth. Hux is close, too, still fucking himself on Ren’s cock as it empties into him, and he’s going to let go of the blanket but then Ren reads his mind or guesses right and starts pumping Hux’s cock, both of them staring down to watch his hand move, their panted breath meeting in the humid space between them. Hux’s climax rushes up the length of his spine as he leans up onto his knees and pulls off of Ren’s cock. When the thick head stretches his rim just right on its way out he arches and spills into Ren’s hand, so hot inside the circle of the blanket and against Ren’s skin that for a moment he thinks he’ll lose consciousness entirely. 

But it’s only partial, and as he recovers he liquefies in Ren’s arms, the blanket draped lazily around them and Ren’s hand still pressed under Hux’s leaking arse, catching globs of his own come as they dribble out. 

“Need another bloody shower now,” Hux says, still unwilling to peel himself away from Ren’s sweltering skin.

“Or we could go skinny dipping in the pool,” Ren says. 

Hux snorts. That’s a bridge too far, though the idea of the cool water sounds wonderful. He allows himself a bit longer to lie there bonelessly, enjoying the upward press of Ren’s chest against his own and the feeling of Ren’s come sliding out of him, into Ren’s waiting palm. Then he sits back, kisses Ren on the mouth and arches into a full body stretch, lifting his arms overhead and letting the blanket drop away entirely.

“I really am going to shower,” Hux says, pulling his pants up when he stands. “Will you take care of things out here?” He glances at the puddle of come in Ren’s hand, skeptical about where it will end up. 

“Yes, sir,” Ren says. He pads into the kitchen, tucking his cock into his pants on the way there, and washes his hands at the sink. Like a good boy, Hux thinks, with a pang of nostalgia for wilder times in their past, when that palmful of come certainly would have ended up in one of their mouths. Now it’s down the drain, and Hux isn’t really sorry about it. He feels adventurous enough as he tiptoes through the bedroom and into the en suite fresher to clean up. 

Hux puts a fresh t-shirt on after showering, and a pair drawstring shorts that belong to Ren. He peeks back out into the bedroom, hoping his moving about in the fresher hasn’t woken Roan. He’s still motionless at the center of the bed, curled up under the blanket. Hux crawls into bed beside him and watches him sleep for a while, his own eyelids growing heavy as he listens to Roan breathing evenly through his nose. He doesn’t sleep with his mouth open like Hux does. It’s something Hux never knew about himself before Ren teased him for it and then swore that he loves it, actually. Ren is moving about out in the house, doing some mysterious nighttime rituals. Hux hears the door to the patio unlatch. 

“What were you doing out there?” Hux mumbles, half asleep, when Ren finally comes in and stretches out behind him. Ren’s skin feels cool and his hair smells like the salt air outside. 

“Meditating on the beach,” Ren says. He pinches Hux’s side when he snorts. 

Hux has a half-formed jab about meditation in mind, but it slips away as he drops back into sleep. Ren has tried to teach him and Roan to meditate. They’re both naturally disinclined to the process. Hux has trouble relaxing and doesn’t buy into the idea that sitting around doing nothing is enriching somehow. Roan isn’t overly fond of sitting still unless he’s reading or watching a holo. 

Hux wakes a few times during the night, when Roan rolls over or Ren shifts against him, but it’s not difficult to return to sleep. He’s tired, so spent that he sleeps past dawn and on into proper morning, finally waking when a bird outside calls shrilly as it zooms by overhead.

“Papa,” Roan whispers, wide awake and bringing his face right up to Hux’s on the pillow. Ren is still asleep, heavy against Hux’s back. 

“Hmm?”

“I think I had a bad dream.” Roan is wide-eyed, but he doesn’t seem upset, just surprised. He’s fascinated by his dreams in ways that Ren encourages, to Hux’s mild annoyance. He’d personally rather discount dreams as nonsense, good or bad. Hux scoots over to rest his forehead against Roan’s, wanting to extract any bad things from his son’s mind and contain them in his own, as ever. 

“What happened in the dream?” Hux asks. 

“I don’t know. I think you were missing. There were posters everywhere. I couldn’t read the writing but I still knew what it said, and it had your picture. In your uniform with your hat and everything. It said Admiral Hux is missing and there was a reward if someone found you.” 

“That’s rather elaborate. I’m sorry you had a bad dream. But here I am, just where you left me. Not missing. Are you hungry?”

“Yeah.” 

Roan sits up and stretches. His thick hair is messy, and he doesn’t protest when Hux sits up beside him and straightens it with his fingers. Ren flinches and grunts, grabbing for Hux’s thigh. 

“Daddy,” Roan says, leaning over Hux’s lap to whisper this into Ren’s ear. “Are you awake?”

“No,” Ren says, which makes Roan laugh. 

“He stayed up late meditating,” Hux says. He rolls toward Ren and neatens his hair, reliably tangled after a night spent tossing and turning. Ren is a fidgety sleeper. “What time was it when you got in bed?” 

“Don’t know.” Ren groans and flops onto his back. He groans again when Roan crawls onto his chest. “I waited until the moon set,” Ren says, blinking his eyes open. He holds his hands up for Roan, who slaps both his palms on cue. 

“Can we make sugar bread for breakfast?” Roan asks. He’s straddling Ren’s chest, still clapping his hands against Ren’s, seemingly free of the burden of his bad dream already. 

“Sounds good to me,” Hux says. He loves sugar bread, which as far as he knows is something Ren invented, though it may have been handed down from a Solo or an Organa. Hux can’t hold that against it; Ren made it for Hux when he was pregnant, in the last few months when most other foods were suddenly putting him off.

It’s observable from their breakfast table that the water is too choppy for casual boating, at least in Hux’s opinion, and Ren doesn’t try to convince him otherwise. They decide to venture into town instead, and pile onto the speeder that comes with the property rental. Hux drives and Roan sits in the bucket seat, giggling with sheer delight at the feeling of the wind in his face as Hux pilots the vehicle more slowly than he strictly needs to. Roan is so fond of the too-big goggles he wears during the ride that he asks if he can keep them on while they wander through town. 

Hux doesn’t see why not. Ren is using the Force to make all three of them invisible to any potential onlookers. If the locals knew the Fleet Admiral of the Order was strolling amongst them they might be deferential or resentful, but they just as well might have no matter on the opinion either way. With a planet as far from the centers of civilization as Sween it’s hard to say what the inhabitants might feel about ruling powers that rarely touch their daily lives. Most of the citizens in this particular settlement are human, with a scattering of alien species that Hux and Ren have to name for Roan, who sticks close to their legs and asks multiple times if Ren is really sure they can’t be seen. 

The town itself has its charm, though there’s not much to be found in the way of interesting shopping or cuisine. None of the buildings are higher than two stories, but there are some interesting winding pathways that lead to little gardens and fountains, and Roan enjoys perusing the local produce at various stands set up near the main road. Hux is preoccupied with his data pad for much of their stroll, sending Trice instructions for how to respond to a new and ridiculous demand to increase the price of boma steel imported from a planet they colonized years ago. Ren elbows him at one point, in objection.   

“That’s beneath your notice,” he says. 

“Not really,” Hux argues, but he tucks the data pad away, instructions conveyed. Roan has pushed the goggles up onto his head now is gradually growing less shy about exploring. He climbs the stairs of a little clothing shop and peers inside before turning back, disinterested in the colorful robes inside. 

“Lace ice?” he says hopefully. It’s a regional specialty. Roan heard about it from the holos on Sween that he obsessively reviewed in the past weeks.

“Are you really hungry already?” Hux asks. 

“I saw a stand for it back there.” 

“That’s not an answer,” Hux says, but he relents. It’s cheap stuff, tourist junk, a pile of ice chunks that aren’t especially lacy with sugary syrup poured over them. Between this and the breakfast they had at the house, Roan will be wired for the rest of the day, but it’s really his holiday and Hux did promise he could have this treat. 

They sit on a stone bench near the open marketplace while Roan eats his sugarbomb. Hux watches the crowd with wary curiosity. They’re so far from what was once the seat of the Republic that he imagines some of them have never heard of Starkiller. Roan has heard of it, now. He asked what it was last year, and Hux grilled him about where he’d learned that term. It’s not a forbidden word, not like the name _Ben Solo_ was when Snoke was in charge, but it’s not often discussed outside of strategy meetings, as it’s neither a glory nor a defeat, a sore spot but also a triumph. Few know how to present the subject in Hux’s presence, so they rarely try. 

“It was a weapon we used a long time ago,” Hux said after Roan had named the boy in his class who told him Starkiller blew up five planets. “Before you were born.” 

“Did it really--”

“Yes, and it was necessary.” 

Hux isn’t sure he believes this anymore, even as he can’t deny that Starkiller had made a divot in the galaxy that Hux used as a foothold for climbing to the perch where he now sits: with Roan, with Ren, everything he has balanced upon it. Still, he’s changed. Creating Roan, and to a lesser extent the ship disabling weapon that allowed them to easily take on everything the Republic had left, put him off superweapons that blast indiscriminate holes in the landscape of space. But this is all a conversation for another time, when Roan is much older. Hux doesn’t want to make Starkiller mythic in Roan’s mind. He wants it to be only a footnote from the past for as long as he can keep it that way, like so many things that he fears Roan learning more about.

Hux studies the faces of passerby and strains to make out conversations in a dialect of Basic that he’s unfamiliar with. He’s not normally interested in the common galactic citizen, but the way Roan watches these people without looking up from his melting lace ice makes Hux see them differently, too: well out of the orbit of the _Glory_ , their indifference to the unseen leader of the organized galaxy and his family has its own sort of regality, though not in the way that Hux would resent if it were an intentional slight from a culture that supposes he can’t conquer it. There’s a dignity with which they go about their business without noticing him. Though he’s guilty of craving recognition in other arenas, he doesn’t want to interfere in this place, with these people. The peaceful proximity of his son probably has a lot to do with this.

Ren is eating the lace ice that Roan couldn’t finish when what looks like a meeting across the street at a local eatery breaks up. The restaurant is mostly open-air, with a bar area under a canopy of patchwork wood and tin. Hux had been distractedly glancing from the foot traffic on the road outside and back to the gathering of adults that are bidding goodbye to each other on the restaurant’s front patio, their heated group discussion drawing his ear though he couldn’t make out the words precisely or imagine what about a meeting on local politics might interest him, let alone concern him. He realizes what caught his eye only when the woman who had seemed to command the attention of the group passes out of the bar’s shadow and into the sunlight. She squints up at the sky, which is overcast in the distance but clear up above.

She’s Rae. It’s impossible but also so true that Hux shoots up from the steps and walks into the road, narrowly missing a speeder that whizzes by without blasting its horn or seeing him at all. 

“Hux!” Ren shouts, and the volume of his voice pulls Hux back to reality. Roan’s eyes are wide as he rises uncertainly alongside Ren. 

“I saw--” Hux whirls back toward the restaurant and makes a bereft sound when he sees that Rae is gone. “But--” He turns in one direction and then the other. The street is busy, crowded with those on foot and on small vehicles. Despite her disappearance, Hux’s certainty is undimmed: it was her, his mentor, alive, right there, just now. He moves forward in blind distress, again almost walking into oncoming traffic. This time Ren grabs his elbow and pulls him back. 

“What the hell are you doing?” Ren asks, keeping his voice low. “You almost got run down, they can’t see you--”

“I’m sorry, I--” Hux gives Ren a wide-eyed stare, begging to have his mind read so that he won’t have to explain it all in front of Roan, who is looking back and forth between them with startled confusion. But he’s never told Ren about Rae, and Ren has always claimed he can’t find things in Hux’s mind when he’s not looking for them, or at least searching out some adjacent information. Hux has tried shooting thoughts into Ren’s mind like arrows, but his attempts usually result in miscommunication at best. “I thought I saw someone I knew,” Hux says, trying to steady his voice when it comes out shaky. He puts his hand on Roan’s head and turns toward the road again, his gaze sweeping this way and that but finding no sign of her. “Someone who-- She was missing, long ago, but-- I’m sure, it was her, but now--” 

Hux wants to shout her name, to dart through the speeder and foot traffic and down every nearby alley until he finds her. He turns back to Roan and Ren to try to explain this and sees that he won’t be able to, not here, while Roan looks terrified and Ren angry. Hux makes a regretful sound and bends down to pick Roan up, kissing his cheek to reassure him. 

“Papa,” Roan says, clutching him. “That speeder almost hit you.” 

“Daddy never would have let that happen,” Hux says, flashing Ren a look. “Sorry, I was careless-- I think I saw someone I knew when I was little, when I was your age.”

“Who?” Ren and Roan ask at the same time, their tones very different. 

“My--” Hux feels his mouth working soundlessly, his voice dropping away. Roan hugs him tighter. Ren’s angry stare eases into confusion, then sympathy. “My teacher,” Hux says when his voice works. He kisses Roan’s cheek again. “But maybe I was mistaken.” 

_I wasn’t_ , he thinks, knowing Ren will hear. He can feel Ren’s attention locked onto him, searching, his investigative pressure against hazy memories as it dissects the sight of Rae’s profile, the white streak in her dark hair, the civilian clothes she wore. 

“We should go back to the house,” Ren says. 

“But,” Hux says. He turns toward the street again, though he knows she’s gone. 

_Roan’s upset and I’m confused_ , Ren says, sending this directly to Hux’s mind. 

_You don’t understand_ , Hux sends back without thinking.

_You’re right I don’t. Explain it to me. At the house._

By the time they get back the ocean is like glass, but no one is in the mood for boating. Roan is quiet, crashing after all the sugar and excitement. He swims in the pool while Hux and Ren watch from under a shaded outdoor divan that nearly matches the one inside, where they fucked last night. Hux feels a thousand miles away from Ren now, wants to run back to town but knows that he can’t go alone. Ren is in his head, fighting his attempts to shield himself from this intrusion.

“Stop,” Hux finally snaps. “You’ll give me a headache.” 

“Say something and I won’t need to go looking. You’re white as a sheet. Who was she?” 

“Haven’t you dug it out of my memories yet.” 

“She was an officer, she was kind to you, listed as missing in action-- So? I can help you find her again, it wouldn’t be difficult. Why are you so shaken?” 

The real question is unvoiced, except in the biting tone Ren always uses when he feels hurt: _If she was so important to you, why have you never told me about her?_

“I don’t know,” Hux says, mumbling. In the pool, Roan is sitting on the steps in the shallower end, playing with a toy ship, just out of earshot. But why shouldn’t he hear this, too? Hux has so many secrets that he has to be careful with for now, for Roan’s sake, but his memories of Rae aren’t shameful or dangerous. “It’s only that--” He glances at Ren and reaches across the space between them to grasp Ren’s wrist. Ren flinches but doesn’t pull away. “She was the closest thing I had to a parent,” Hux says, speaking softly. “When I thought I’d lost her I just-- I put her away, for good. And I put that entire part of myself away with her, or I thought I had. Then you wrecked all that by making me need you.” 

“Don’t change the subject.” Ren turns his hand over under Hux’s and laces their fingers together. “Are you upset that she didn’t let you know she’s alive?”

“No.” Yes, of course. “I’m sure she has her reasons. She probably doesn’t want to hear from me at all, I’m sure it will set her on edge to have been hunted down. Strange that we ended up taking a holiday on the planet where she’s been hiding, by chance.” He gives Ren a look to ask if there’s anything more to it. 

“I felt this was the right place for our trip,” Ren says. He’s frowning, angry again. He doesn’t like being accused of keeping secrets, but he doesn’t understand how it feels to not be able to check someone else’s mind for the truth, to settle those fears with discoverable information. “Maybe the fact that someone you once cared about lives here had something to do with that feeling,” Ren says. “But it wasn’t intentional.” 

“I’m sorry.” Hux doesn’t even know what he’s apologizing for. He moves closer to Ren and leans against his side, closes his eyes and puts his head on Ren’s shoulder as Ren’s arm wraps snugly around his waist. “It was like seeing a ghost. It--” He stops himself before comparing this to how Ren might feel if he saw his mother in a crowd, suddenly and without warning. Ren sighs and tugs him closer, kisses the top of his head. 

“I can find her and bring her here,” he says. 

Hux goes tense at the thought. His heart has been beating too fast since he saw her, across that street, moving with the same confidence he remembered from his youth, chin lifted and steps sure. 

“I wouldn’t want her to think she’d been captured,” Hux says. “Maybe I should just-- Leave it. She’s obviously keeping away from the Order for some reason. That includes me.” 

Hux can feel Ren sensing it when he thinks of his biological mother, how she’s kept away, too. Then there’s the rush of fear that Hux barely ever acknowledges even to himself: the idea that Roan will want to know his other biological father someday, that he’ll go looking for him.

“You worry about every eventuality years before you need to,” Ren says, murmuring this close to Hux’s ear. 

“Look at what my job is, Ren. It’s required.”

Hux isn’t sure if he’s talking about fatherhood or ruling the galaxy. It’s applicable to both. If he didn’t worry, he’d miss things. It happened with Starkiller, a loss that was once unthinkable. Everything gone in a blink because of a few untested scenarios, a handful of oversights. 

“Maybe you can go to her, then,” Ren says. 

“But that would require you as a security escort, which would mean bringing Roan. No, that’s-- It’s not possible.” 

“Why? You think she’s dangerous?”

“No!” Hux sits up, feeling overheated. Roan turns from his toys and gives Hux a searching look. Hux’s ribs tighten when he allows himself to wonder why Roan might have dreamed that he’d gone missing. How naive he’d been to think his son doesn’t know much about fear. He’s just good at hiding it, like Hux. 

“Then why not?” Ren asks when Hux looks at him again. “We could all pay her a visit together. She cared about you as a boy, at least from your perspective, based on your memories. She might like to meet your family.”

Hux scoffs. “You don’t know her.”

“So tell me about her.” Ren’s request is sharp but not harsh. He swallows when Hux leans onto him again and pets his arm. “You still hold me at a distance,” Ren says. He turns to look at Roan, and Hux knows he’s wondering if this would be true if he were Roan’s biological father, if they were tied together by their son’s blood instead of his love. 

“I live and breathe you,” Hux says. He brings his fingertips to Ren’s jaw and prods Ren to turn toward him again. “There’s no distance between us. But that boy, the person I was when she took care of me? Of course there’s distance between me and him. And therefore between him and you. Roan doesn’t know the boy I was either.” No one does, really, but Rae. 

“In my experience it’s not altogether well advised to separate your past self from your present.” 

Hux sniffs. “Well, it works wonders for me.” 

“Does it.” 

Hux doesn’t appreciate the implied refutation. What does Ren want? If Hux fixated on the past he would still be the person he was before they met: closed off, resigned to a life as a droid-like person after the humans who’d been formative influences had abandoned him. 

“I’ll think about it,” Hux says. He stands up and strips off his shirt. “It’s a lot to think about,” he adds when he turns back to Ren, giving him a pleading look. 

“I wish I had known you then,” Ren says. He’s brooding, so spoiled. He wants all versions of Hux that have ever existed, not just the one he has now. 

“Oh, I would have been awful to you,” Hux says, though if he’s honest he wishes he’d always had Ren, too. All iterations. 

“Papa,” Roan calls. “Are you coming in?”

“I am.” Hux strips off his pants, revealing tight swim trunks underneath. 

“And Daddy, too?”

Ren answers this inquiry by shucking his shirt and cannon-balling into the deep end, to Roan’s delight. They swim out to meet each other in the middle while Hux floats on his back in the shallow end, blinking up at the glare of the sun through the wispy clouds overhead. 

He hasn’t had a moment alone to gather his thoughts since seeing Rae in town. Parts of him wants to doubt what he felt, that razor sharp certainty that she was there, close enough to call out to if he’d not lost his voice as soon as he realized who he was looking at. What business would he have marching up to Rae’s home on Sween, Ren and Roan trailing him, and demanding an audience? He’s lucky she was ever kind to him at all. She’s obviously found something better.

 _Like they all do_ , something inside him says. Hux pinches his eyes shut against the sun, snarling at that cruel whisper and the accompanying fear that someday Roan will find his other biological father and prefer him to Hux. It’s the stupidest and most self indulgent paranoid obsession Hux has ever known, and he’s known quite a few.

“Papa!” Roan calls, summoning Hux out of his personal hell with that word. Roan swims into Hux’s outstretched arms and lets Hux hug him and kiss his wet hair as if they’ve been apart for some time. “Daddy did a flip under the water! Can I try it?” 

“I don’t think so,” Hux says. “You’ll get water up your nose.” 

“But I know how to hold my breath, I learned.” 

Hux groans and sits back to watch Ren give Roan a beginning lesson in underwater flips, surely a frivolous skill but one that makes Roan beam with pride when he gets it right.

“Think of it is anti-gravity training,” Ren says, and he winks when Hux gives him a look. 

Hux is mentally adrift for the rest of the day, finding it hard to concentrate on anything but that flash of Rae’s face through the crowd and the idea of her life here, whatever it might entail. She looked well, almost untouched by the years since Hux last saw her and obviously a person of influence in the local community. But why here? Has she lost her memories? Forsaken the Order for some reason? She essentially founded it herself, with Hux as her protege. Plenty suspected that the mission she was on when she went missing may have been compromised by rivals within the Order. Hux wants desperately to talk with her, to tell her everything and to have all the details filled in, questions answered, but he doesn’t know her anymore, there are security concerns, and he’s afraid she’ll recoil from the sight of him after everything that’s happened, whatever _everything_ entails, exactly. 

By sundown he still hasn’t decided what he wants to do about Rae. They’re here for another three cycles, and Hux won’t be able to sleep if he knows she’s out there, accessible to him in one and perhaps not in another. He wants to talk with her like he did as a boy, in strictest confidence. They essentially plotted Brendol’s murder together, for fuck’s sake. And she’s been alive all this time. Never once making an attempt to contact him. Not missing him at all, by the looks of it. He might have known. Even his real mother never cared to glance back in his direction. 

“Hey,” Ren says. He’s speaking softly but still manages to startle Hux, who’s been standing at the kitchen counter with his hands clawed around the edge, staring blindly at the wall behind the sink. “You’re feverish with misery,” Ren says, his mouth close to Hux’s ear. Roan is in the other room, presiding over a game of dejarik that Ren laid out for them. 

“It’s not misery,” Hux says, but he folds gladly into Ren’s embrace, needing the warm reassurance that he’s here, and that he at least partially understands. “It’s preoccupation.” 

“Whatever it is, it’s making you grind your teeth. Let me pour you a drink.” 

“Thanks, but I’m not really in the mood.” He had his first ever drink with Rae, at fourteen, to celebrate his leaving for the Academy. It was one of the last times he ever saw her. 

“You’re so attached to these memories,” Ren says, apparently listening in. “I’m surprised I never sensed them before.” 

“Yes, well--”

“Maybe I was confusing them with your feelings about your mother.” 

Hux projects the kind of antagonistic energy that he knows Ren will sense: _leave it, don’t go any further, fuck your assumptions_. He goes into the living room to sit beside Roan, hoping to cheer himself up or find some kind of clarity. What could he ever need from past caretakers when he’s got a real family now? Rae wouldn’t have even described herself as his caretaker. Nor would Hux’s biological mother have applied that term to herself, even for the briefest moment, nor Brendol, and they’re all gone anyway, or they were, before Ren allowed Hux to come to this backwater and waltz right into an emotional trap. And just when he was beginning to relax. 

“Papa?” Roan says, leaning onto him. 

“Yes, darling?”

“If you were missing, in real life, how would I find you? Where would you go to hide?”

“What kind of question is that?” Hux smoothes Roan’s hair down and looks up at Ren. He’s hovering near the divan, arms crossed over his chest. “I’m not going anywhere,” Hux says, and he pulls Roan fully into his lap. “Why would I ever hide from you?”

“No, I meant-- If the bad guys took you, and you got away from them. Where then? How would we get you back?” 

“There’s no place in the galaxy that isn’t open to the Force,” Ren says before Hux can stammer out a question about which bad guys Roan is apparently afraid of. Ren crosses the room and kneels down on the other side of the derajik board. “And every place that’s open to the Force is a place where I can protect you both,” he says, locking eyes with Roan. “Always.” 

“I know,” Roan says, mumbling. He’s curled against Hux’s chest, letting Hux pet his hair and listening to Hux’s heartbeat kick into high gear again. 

“And no bad guys have come anywhere near me for a long time,” Hux says. It seems a dangerous statement; he’s always afraid his arrogance will be paid back in spiritual retribution. A fanciful and ridiculous idea, but he’s had a spiritualist in his bed for the past five years and some things have rubbed off. “I’m sorry I scared you today,” Hux says when Roan looks up at him. “But I’m all right, we’re all safe here. No one is strong enough to separate the three of us.” 

It would be sentimental nonsense from the mouth of most parents, but with Ren on his side Hux has to believe it’s true. If there is someone in the galaxy more powerful than Ren, Hux hasn’t encountered them or even heard rumor of their existence in all his years of scouring the stars for any hint of a threat. 

They’re all in bed early that night, Roan lying between Hux and Ren while Hux continues his story about the warrior and the prince who were once enemies, now partners who evade the wicked queen who seeks them. He’s embarrassed to have Ren overhearing this when it’s so obviously about them, but Ren is smiling in his eyes throughout, and when Roan drifts to sleep Ren reaches over to run the back of one finger from Hux’s cheekbone and down along his jaw, the kind of romantic gesture the prince might have lavished on the warrior during some quiet moment like this. 

“When do they have a baby?” Ren asks. 

“Five years later,” Hux says. “It comes as a shock.” 

“I’ll bet.” 

Hux closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, his nose pressed to the top of Roan’s head as he curls in around him, closer to Ren. He wonders what the wicked queen would think of the prince’s son, if she’s felt him through the Force or understood at all that the wayward prince could go so far away from her and still love someone so small. 

“I’d like to go see her,” Hux says, blinking his eyes open to see that Ren is watching him, looking concerned. “Rae, I mean.” 

“Fine. We can go tomorrow.” 

Hux wants to scream at the mention of what they _can_ do. They can do anything; it crushes him more regularly than limitations ever did. He feels paralyzed by it at moments, like now. Ren’s fingertips are soft on his cheek. He brushes his thumb over Hux’s closed eyelids, tracing his lashes. 

“I just want everything to stay as it is now,” Hux says, before Ren can start lecturing him about the dark side or balance or love or whatever. “And it won’t,” Hux says when he opens his eyes.

“You’d be bored by stagnation.” 

“No. Not anymore.” 

“He’ll only be more amazing,” Ren says, bringing his hand to Roan’s shoulder. “As he gets older.” 

“Yes, certainly. And I’ll be progressively less so in his view. Shh, never mind. We shouldn’t-- I’ll never sleep, but. I don’t want to talk about it here. Or now.”

 _Hux_ , Ren says, without speaking. _You’re just nervous_. 

_Shut up_. Hux winces and tries not to think: how would you feel, if it was your reunion, your people.

Ren doesn’t respond through the Force or otherwise, but he does reach over to cup his hand around the back of Hux’s neck. It’s no sedative stim, but he does sleep thinly under the warmth of Ren’s palm, for a time.

He’s glad not to have slept deeply enough for dreams, but in the morning he’s tired and he has no appetite, not even for sugar bread. He busies himself with his data pad at the breakfast table, sending instructions and reviewing reports, but everything runs like clockwork now and there’s little for him to obsess over beyond checking and rechecking data that shows all is well back home.

“But I don’t want to,” Roan complains when they announce that they’re going back into town. “I hated it there.” He glances nervously at Hux and then back up at Ren. “The lace ice wasn’t even good.” 

“We’ll only be passing through the place where we were yesterday,” Ren says. “On the way to see Papa’s friend. Don’t you want to meet someone he knew when he was a little boy, your age?”

“No,” Roan mumbles, but he gives Hux a curious look. “Who is it?”

“My teacher,” Hux says. “She was very kind to me when I was young. I just want to thank her and say hello. You can stay hidden with Daddy the whole time if you like. Though I’d like her to meet you, since you’re my proudest achievement.”  

“What’s her name?” Roan asks, as if his cooperation hinges on this. Ironically, Hux thinks. 

“Rae Sloane,” he says, and he can feel it when Ren senses, finally, after all these years, that Roan is her namesake. 

“Is she nice?”

“Mhmm.” Who had time to be nice, back then? “She protected me when I was little, when no one else would. So, yes. Essentially.” 

“Essentially,” Roan repeats, careful with every syllable. 

“It’ll be an adventure,” Ren says. “She lives just outside of town, by the eastern coastline.” 

“We won’t visit for long,” Hux says. He suspects Rae will be rattled and suspicious, eager to get rid of them. He doesn’t want to disrupt her life, scare her away from here, but he can’t leave this planet without seeing her. “And afterward, when we come back here, we’ll take the boat out and fish.” 

“Yeah,” Roan says, nodding. “When the water’s calm, right?”

“Right.” Hux kisses his forehead. “Come now, let’s get going. So we can make the most of our time on the boat when we get back.” 

Hux feels his consciousness narrowed to a pinprick on the speeder ride toward Rae’s house, Ren driving this time. It’s not unlike the feeling just before a battle simulation, only this is no simulation. Roan is in the bucket seat again with his goggles on, but he’s not giddy now. He senses it when Hux gets serious, worried, tensed for conflict, and he conducts himself accordingly, on guard for disaster at Hux’s side. He’s like Ren in that way. 

The ride through town passes too quickly. Their speeder isn’t invisible now, but their identities are muddled with the Force, just in case. Away from the crowds, they move through a sunlit residential area, the cottages there close together at first and increasingly spread out as they get farther from town. Insects sing in the tall, flowering weeds that line the road. Hux can smell the ocean, and then he can see it, looming far below the rocky cliffs on the eastern coastline, stretching out to the horizon. 

“It’s this one,” Ren says when they’re parked across from a cottage that’s set back from the road, almost right up against the cliff’s edge. It’s small but well-kept, with a front yard more orderly than those of its closest neighbors. Still, the only flowers growing on the property are wild, speckled here and there in the short grass. “She’s home,” Ren adds more softly when he turns back to Hux. 

“I’ll go to the door alone,” Hux says.

“No,” Ren says, and Hux is surprised when he’s relieved. It’s not as if he’s afraid Rae will hurt him. Of course she won’t, and Ren wouldn’t have agreed to bring him here if there was any inkling of a threat. But he’s glad when Ren walks up the front path alongside him, and when Roan reaches up to hold his hand. 

“I’ve no idea what to say,” Hux confesses, muttering this when they’re all standing there, staring at her front door. There are three little windows along the top, diamond-shaped. “She won’t know me, she won’t--” 

“Yes, she will,” Ren says. “You don’t look so different than you did at sixteen.”

“Ha!” 

“Plus you’re famous,” Ren mutters, and he smiles when Hux looks at him, desperate. Infamous, Hux would correct, if Roan wasn’t here. But maybe that’s not strictly true either.

Hux lets go of Roan’s hand when Ren reaches down to pick him up. Holding him, Ren steps back into the yard. Hux takes a deep breath, staring at the two of them. It seems impossible that anything but the constancy of their love should matter, but Hux feels as if he’s still auditioning for the role of a worthy person when he knocks on Rae’s door. 

Footsteps from inside. A pause, her consideration. Hux can feel her seeing him through whatever security contraption she uses to monitor her property. He pinches his eyes shut for half a second and drags up a memory of her telling him that if he minded her lessons he could rule the galaxy someday. Brendol had only ever threatened him with the kitchens. 

_Here I am_ , Hux thinks when he opens his eyes and meets Rae’s. She’s looking at him through the middle diamond on the door, unblinking. _Ruler of the galaxy_. Hux tries to announce himself this way with a look, overly accustomed to projecting his thoughts into the mind of the person who is supposed to understand him. _But where have you been?_

Rae opens the door and blinks in the sunlight. She still wears her hair in a tight bun, still favors long sleeves even in this heat. She frowns at Hux and then at Ren and Roan. 

“Armitage,” she says when she looks back to him. “I always wondered if you’d find me.” 

“Were you hiding from me?” Hux hates how his voice sounds: young, pleading. 

Rae smiles the same way she always did: very slightly and just in her eyes. “Not specifically. Who are they?”

“That’s my husband and my son.” Hux can’t remember the last time he felt so clumsy with words. His face is hot, too, and his shoulders are back as if for an inspection.

“Ah. I didn’t recognize them.” Rae’s gaze returns to Hux’s. “I’ve only seen your husband in the mask, in your propaganda. Your son-- He’s grown.”

“Yes, well-- We keep him out of most of that stuff now, there’s no need--”

“You travel without guards?” 

“No, Ren is-- He’s a Force user, he’s ten steps ahead of any guard.” 

“Are you arresting me or expecting to be invited inside?”

Hux laughs, then realizes it wasn’t a joke. There’s no smile in Rae’s eyes now. Hux’s face flames hotter as he shakes his head. 

“We feared you’d died,” he says, softly enough that Roan won’t hear. 

“I think most in the Order’s leadership at the time feared I hadn’t. How did you find me?”

“I saw you in town-- Just, by chance. Yesterday.” 

Rae studies Hux’s eyes. She’s aged some but it’s not as evident in her face as in the way the band of white in her hair has thickened.

“So you’re asking to come in,” she says. 

“You’ve got every right to refuse us.” Hux tries to access the unflappable exterior that’s usually summoned easily, but she’s the one who taught him how to put it on, and suddenly it’s not there. He can feel his mouth hanging open stupidly, presses his lips shut. “I just thought,” he says when she’s studying Ren and Roan again, brow pinching. “You might. Like to catch up.” 

“As long as you’re not trying to catch me,” she says, eyes darting back to Hux’s. 

“What would your crime be? You were serving the Order faithfully when you disappeared, and that was long before I was in control of the missions you were assigned. Never mind-- Fuck, sorry, a stupid idea, I’ll leave you alone.”

“I didn’t tell you to go.” She reaches out to take his shoulder, keeping him in place. “I’m just surprised. It’s rare I get visitors here, especially Imperial dignitaries.”  

“You may have noticed we don’t call it an Empire, in this propaganda you’ve seen.” 

The smile lights in Rae’s eyes again, sharp but pleased. “Come inside,” she says. “Before my neighbors across the street see you. They’re nosy.”

“Only you can see us,” Ren says, louder than necessary. “The Force protects us.” 

“A Force user for a husband.” Rae looks to Hux again. “Never would have guessed.”

“Yes, well, me either.” 

The interior of the house has a tidy spareness that Hux recognizes. It’s Imperial, or post-Imperial, though the light is the same as the light in the house they’re renting on the south coast: warm, buttery, allowing for shadows that are cozy rather than menacing. The kitchen at the back of the house is where they gather. Rae opens the back door so the sea air can flow inside. 

“It gets stuffy in here,” she says. 

Stuffy is an understatement, or maybe a polite way of describing the awkward tension in the room. Hux walks to the back windows and peers into the grassy courtyard that overlooks the ocean, abutting the cliff’s edge. There are two sun-baked wooden chairs out there. Hux wonders if Rae has a companion and if they’re in town right now, at work.

“How do you do?” Rae says to Roan, who is staring at her. Ren is still holding him. 

“He’s five years old,” Hux blurts when Roan just goes on staring. “Sorry, he-- Roan, you can say hello.” 

“Hello,” Roan says, voice small. 

“I met your father when he was about your age.” Rae keeps her distance, leaning back against the counter and crossing her arms over her chest. That she doesn’t offer refreshments is a relief. “He was very brave,” Rae says, glancing at Hux. “Still is, I’d say.” 

She’s remarking on the fact that he’s dared to have a family. Hux is sure of it.

“We’ll give you some space,” Ren says. He looks to Hux, asking if this is okay. Hux nods and Ren walks outside with Roan to look at the view, out of earshot, the strong wind blowing their hair fully sideways, Ren’s like a black flag. 

“You want an explanation, I take it?” Rae says. 

“Can we sit?”

“Certainly.” She gestures to the table at the center of the room. It’s worn, an antique, but polished. “I’m going to have a drink,” she says, turning to the cabinets. “You?”

“Yes, please. You know. You gave me my first drink.” 

“Of course I remember.” She turns toward Hux while still rooting in the cabinet. He half expects her to pull out a blaster, but she’s smarter than that, or maybe she actually trusts him. Probably the former. In her hand there’s a bottle of clear liquor with a faint blue tint. Hux smiles at the sight of it, feels sweat dripping down from the backs of his knees. 

“The same drink,” he says. “After all this time.” 

“Old habits.” She gets two glasses and puts them on the table. “You probably know by now that Sampo and his inner circle were out to make my death look like an accident, back then.”

“Yes, I-- I’ve reviewed the records, of course. As soon as I had access to everything in the archives I went looking.” 

“So there’s really no mystery to what happened to me. I ducked their scheme and laid low, waiting for the right time to reappear and make my move. I was on Jakku for a time, did you know that?”

“I looked for you there.” Hux takes the generous pour of Tillam gin that she pours for him and drinks from it. 

Rae sits at the head of the table and takes a more dignified sip while Hux has a second gulp. He can just hear Roan’s little voice outside, over the wind, his questions to Ren about what’s happening and what this or that plant is called, and when can they go. Hux has his back to the window. 

“The Order tightened up in my absence,” Rae says. “You saw to that yourself, eventually. There were fewer and fewer cracks that I could see from the outside, places where I might have reinserted myself. I am proud of you, Armitage. I’ve thought of showing my face, wondered what sort of currency it might hold with you in charge. But circumstances can change our aspirations, over time.” She drinks again and looks out the back door, at Ren and Roan. “As you’ve learned, too, I see.” 

“He’s mine, you know,” Hux says in a rush. He is a lightweight now, Ren is right, but he drinks more when Rae looks at him. “I mean really mine, came from-- From me-- My mother was half-Dissonian, I didn’t know I could, but I found out, the doctors had told me--”

“Yes, I thought so. When I saw the propaganda. I knew your mother.” 

“You-- What? When?”

“Before you were born. We--” Rae lifts one shoulder and looks into her glass. “She had her own plans, and they ultimately didn’t include me. I was resolved not to care about her child, but resolutions are like aspirations. Changeable.” 

Hux gapes at her, open-mouthed. The sweat coating his legs and the back of his neck seems to go cold. He’s not upset, exactly, but his lips are shaking when he drinks again. 

“You’ve been such a success,” Rae says. “Aren’t you pleased with all you have?”

“Of course.” There’s something defensive in this statement, even though it’s true. 

“Then why come looking for an old woman who taught you how to shoot and how to drink? I don’t know where your mother is.” 

“I never would have expected you to! I wanted to see you, I-- I think of you often, especially now.” 

“Now that you’re a father?”

Hux opens his mouth to say yes, of course, but he’s too embarrassed to vocalize it. She wasn’t his mother. How many more times does she need to remind him?

“I was always inclined to dislike children,” Rae says. “But I couldn’t stand by and let them waste your potential. I suppose I felt alone in the galaxy, too. We did make a good team. I consider the Order’s success our shared victory.” 

“I’m sure you know about Starkiller.” 

“Armitage, really, are you still hung up on that? It could have been much worse, in the aftermath. I heard you invented the disablers. Is that only propaganda?”

“No!”

Rae gives him a rare open smile when she sees his outraged expression. He flushes. She was trying to rile him on purpose, teasing. She was the one who pushed him into engineering, away from his overcompensating efforts to excel in pure combat or even strategy. 

“Don’t have only one thing you can do,” Hux says, quoting her. “If you can help it.”

“And look at all the things you can do.” Rae glances at Roan and Ren. They’re both examining a scaly little creature that’s crawling on the rocks that mark the far border of Rae’s yard, Roan laughing as Ren feeds it a leaf.  

“I don’t know why I’m here.” Hux drains the last drops of his drink and pushes the glass away. “I’m sorry. No, I take that back. I’m not sorry. I’m glad you’re alive and I’m glad I know now.” 

“I’m glad, too,” Rae says. “On both counts.”

“Are you.” Hux hears himself sounding like Ren; he doesn’t regret it. “You’ve got a place in the Order, if you should ever want--” 

“Flattering, but I keep busy with local politics and disputes. You’d be surprised. It’s fascinating, how all the same conflicts play out on a micro level.” 

“This place-- It’s beautiful, but. Don’t you get bored?”

“Of course. But don’t you, too? Without the radicals always at your door?” 

“I suppose I would, if not for, you know. Private life.” 

Hux turns his chair so he can see the window from corner of his eye. Ren is looking in at them now, watching Hux. Roan notices this and looks, too. 

“I can relate,” Rae says. 

“You have someone?”

“Yes. She’d be very frightened if she came home and found you here, though I’ve always told her you wouldn’t hurt us, that we’re safe enough as long as you’re in command of all the galaxy’s fiercest machines.” 

“And did you believe it yourself?”

“Sometimes.” Rae’s smile is only in her eyes now, softer than Hux remembers it. Maybe she’s flattering him; maybe her heart is slamming while she prays the person she loves won’t walk through the door, into this scene that she can’t control and doesn’t trust.

“What was my mother like?” Hux asks. Who else will ever tell him?

“A seasoned con artist who only looked out for herself. I admired that about her when I was younger. Deadly charming, but she barely concealed what she was really after. An almost honorable thief. I got her that position in the kitchen-- She was supposed to be helping me with one of my own schemes.”

“And instead?” Hux asks, muttering, staring at his glass. 

“Instead she was running one of her own. I imagine she’s still a wealthy woman, somewhere, if she hasn’t crossed the wrong person by now. Brendol was no match for her, of course. Neither was I, in the end. Couldn’t even resist looking after you when she was gone. I see your Force user isn’t as cold as he looks in the propaganda. The boy is his?”

“Yes,” Hux says. In every way that matters. He gives Rae a long look, daring her to ask how it’s possible. She’s smart, and must have access to at least some of her old informants. It’s likely she knows that Leia Organa and Han Solo had no Dissonian blood to pass down to Ben.  

“Whoever would have thought,” Rae says. “You and I, here.” 

“I thought you would always be in my life,” Hux confesses, not caring that he’s drunk and overheated, short on rest and spinning into something sentimental. “That you were indestructible.” 

“I was there for as long as you needed a guiding hand. You’re everything I wanted for the Order. I knew you could be what the galaxy needed, with all your parents’ ruthlessness. Without me there you might have become another Brendol, or someone like your mother, who didn’t believe in anything.”

“Well, congratulations on your successful project.” She talks of him like he speaks of successful trooper development, loyal officers. Things that have gone according to plan.

“I did miss my little companion,” she says, leaning over the table. “I think of you whenever I drink this stuff. How we toasted all that was to come. And isn’t it as glorious as we hoped?” 

“You could still offer the Order so much,” Hux says, almost whispering as he leans toward her, too. “I can’t believe you’re complacent-- Here. Overseeing community meetings at a local bar.”

“And I once never would have believed you’d be content to throw in with Organa’s wayward son, but there he is in my backyard, lifting your little boy into his arms. What do you want me to say, Armitage? That I’ve been waiting here for your invitation to put on a uniform again? I had that life, and by my estimation I made the most of it. You’ll understand when you’re older. The appeal of being weighed down by medals and decorations dims.” 

“I know that!”

“Do you? I’d prefer to think you’re enjoying it for the time being. But maybe you’d rather be here, hiding on Sween with those two.”

“I--” Hux snaps his mouth shut before he can deny that he wouldn’t. The truth is that he wants both, all of it, more than he believes he can keep. He stands from his chair and sees Ren scooping Roan up outside, sensing that this reunion is over. “Thank you for the drink,” Hux says, straightening his tunic. He wore the only nice one that he brought on this trip, with a high collar; it’s really too much for this heat, but so are Rae’s clothes. He can’t imagine her in one of the lightweight shifts that the women in town wore. 

“Parting words, then,” Rae says, standing. She clasps her hands behind her back and takes a deep breath. Ren lingers just outside the back door, uncertain. “You became the man I hoped you would,” Rae says. “I had such faith in the little boy you were. People joked about it, do you remember? I didn’t care about their opinions. Perhaps I should have courted favor more. Maybe then I wouldn’t have had to fake my death or go into hiding. But from where I’m standing I feel I made the right choices. Thank you for honoring my faith in you. For listening when I told you how to conduct yourself.” She glances at Ren and Roan as they come into the doorway. The roles they fill in Hux’s life were never mentioned in her lessons. “And long live the First Order,” Rae says when she looks back to Hux. 

“You could come to our house,” Hux says, hating that formal farewell, though it should be more than that between them. The Order was always their project, together. “I mean-- On the south shore, here. We’re on Sween for three more cycles.” 

“Oh.” Rae glances at Ren and Roan. “I don’t know. My-- We keep to ourselves in the evenings.” 

“Of course. Let me-- Let me give you my private comm coordinates, at least. It’s, um. I programmed the channel myself, so. It’s entirely secure.”

They shake hands before Hux leaves. He’s in a daze on the way out the front door; the sun seems crueler on this side of the house, or on this side of what just occurred. He climbs onto the speeder behind Ren and holds on tight.

“She reminds me of you,” Ren says. 

“What? You barely met her.”

“Mhm. She has your manner, though. That restraint.” Ren looks down at Roan as he secures his goggles over his face. “Ready?” he asks. 

“Ready!” Roan says. He reaches over to tug on Hux’s pant leg. “Papa, you’re all sweaty.” 

“Well, it’s warm out.” Hux closes his eyes and puts his chin on Ren’s shoulder. He’s not sure if Ren has cloaked them in the Force yet, but it doesn’t matter. “At home I’ll put on my swimsuit,” Hux says, turning his cheek toward Roan. 

“Yeah, for the boat!” 

“The boat, indeed. At last.” 

The afternoon sea is again like glass, flat and clear. Hux hangs back in the few shadows available on the little hover boat once they’ve put it down over the water, letting it bob gently. Roan doesn’t like the bait on the fishhooks but cheers triumphantly when Ren uses the Force, presumably, to lure multiple fat fish to their doom. Hux claps and smiles and tries to seem as present as possible, though he’s been pitched back into the past. 

He can’t stop thinking of that one grainy holo of his mother, the way she’d almost smirked for her Imperial employee data profile picture. There was a threat in it, and Hux has seen the same threat in his own holo portraits and recordings, the ones that are sent out as propaganda. He approves of it there. When he thinks of that look on his mother’s face he can now no longer fantasize that it means a kind of defiance that ever would have included him, bundled against her chest as she sneaked away from Brendol’s influence. No, she wanted him even less than Brendol did. Rae never told him so when he was a boy; she was at least that protective of him, while encouraging him to face other horrors head on. But there’s no reason for her to sugarcoat it now, and so he finally knows. 

“Papa, look!” 

Hux tugs himself out of his wallowing and grins when he sees Roan holding a stupidly massive fish with bright green scales. 

“Looks like dinner,” Hux says. 

Roan wrinkles his nose up and laughs. Hux’s eyes burn, but he goes on smiling. _I love you_ , he thinks, wishing he could send it directly into Roan’s bones the way that Ren does with the Force, making Hux and Roan feel it like they’re floating, that encompassing adoration that words can’t convey. The best Hux can do is spend his life making Roan know it for certain, giving him no cause to ever doubt it. He gets up and goes to them, into the glare of the sun. 

As Hux expected, Rae never shows up for dinner or sends a message to his comm. The rest of their holiday on Sween is uneventful in the way that they planned, and Hux does his best to turn his back on the stinging salt spray of the past. It helps that the sun makes him drowsy, too tired by day’s end to remember any dreams, and that at night Roan sleeps between him and Ren like he did as a baby, his little hands curled against Hux’s at the edge of their pillow.  

“Do you miss the _Glory_?” Hux asks hopefully on the morning of their scheduled departure. It’s early, gray outside, and Ren is still asleep. 

“Yeah,” Roan says, whispering. “Can I bring back some sand to show Chirom?” 

Chirom is one of Roan’s friends from Beginning Civics. Hux doesn’t approve, but he doesn’t really like any children except Roan, so none of them will ever seem good enough to befriend his little prince. 

“Will he really be impressed by sand?” Hux asks. 

“Yeah! Daddy says there’s an empty bottle in the kitchen I can use. Please, I want to give him a present.” 

“His mother likely won’t be pleased that he’s bringing artisan dirt back to their quarters.” Chirom’s mother is a pilot, one of their best, steadily promoted since Hux took over. 

“Don’t call it dirt,” Roan says. He closes his hand over Hux’s and peers at him with a kind of sympathy, as if this is good advice that he should take. “It’s sand.” 

“You’re right. Accurate language is important.” 

Ren laughs, apparently awake, though his face is still buried in the pillow. Hux reaches over to flick him in the shoulder. 

_You don’t know how to talk to kids_ , Ren told him once. It might be true, but Hux can’t be faulted for this. Rae taught him that clarity is more important than insincere comfort. Brendol talked to him like a malfunctioning droid. No telling what his mother would have said. Hux suspects that even with this new information about her utter ruthlessness he won’t stop idly fantasizing, in the smallest hours of his sleepless nights, that she might have taught him to be a little thief who worked at her side. A partner in crime.

In rational moments he chides himself for this thinking. He’s so lucky to have Rae’s tutelage instead. As they’re flying away from Sween, he watches the planet growing smaller in the stern monitor. Maybe he’ll have a message from Rae on his comm someday, when her desire to criticize a public decision he’s made outweighs her hesitation. Maybe not. She’s not wrong that she gave him what he needed most when it was almost too late for him to become anything but a battered scrap of a person or a snarling monster like the children who were trained solely to kill. He’s a bit of both: a monster, a scrap. But everything else he has is what she gave him.

Back on the _Glory_ , Roan wants to go straight to class rather than taking the rest of the day to himself. Hux isn’t surprised; among his peers Roan is quite social. He must get that from some innate thing passed on by his other biological father. Ren and Hux are equally disinterested in social interactions of all kinds, most of the time. They hurry into their bedroom as soon as they’ve escorted Roan to his classroom. That first night on the divan was the last time they had each other, and Hux needs it, needs to feel the way he only ever does when Ren is all he can see and feel, when Ren hovers over him and murmurs praise into his mouth while he sinks deep inside, remaking him.

“You’re so good,” Ren whispers, smoothing his thumbs over Hux’s cheeks, fucking into him slow. They both want it to last.

“I’m not,” Hux says. He didn’t mean to hiccup that out; he’s not actually about to start crying, just short of breath and overwhelmed, happy or something. “Not so good.” 

“Nnh, for me you are. Perfect, fucking perfect, can’t you feel it?”

Ren puts his forehead against Hux’s and laughs low in his chest when Hux gasps and clenches up hard around him. It’s so strange, still, these moments when Ren tries to pour what he’s _feeling_ straight down into Hux. Strangest of all when they’re locked together like this, already breathing the same humid air. 

“Every fire you were forged in burned bright enough to call to me,” Ren says, murmuring this into Hux’s ear. He sounds a bit high, gets like this sometimes when he slides half his conscious thought process up against Hux’s, drawing heart-shapes in the condensation on Hux’s mind. “It was all the Force’s design. Our worst days apart made us into who we needed to be for each other.”

“All right, all right,” Hux says, muttering this against Ren’s lips. He gets embarrassed by any effort to spell it out, always. But his body sings a different song, and he knows Ren hears it. 

When they’re lying together afterward something feels new. Hux thinks of drinking fizzy alcohol at a gala and overdoing it because he was an instant slut for the taste. He thinks of the first time Ren used the Force to levitate him, and the first time they kissed without trying to bite each other. He’s not sure what milestone this is. Ren is heavy and warm beside him, stroking his sweat-damp hair back. Hux has been here a thousand times, but he feels lighter than he has in days and can’t stop smiling like an idiot. 

“You’re back in your element,” Ren says. “Aboard your ship. Fuck, this really is your paradise, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Why shouldn’t it be?”

“It absolutely should be,” Ren says, half-kissing him while he says so. “Fleet Admiral.” 

Hux can’t really keep that title if he’s going to properly rule the galaxy, but he can’t imagine anything grander when he hears it from Ren’s lips: it’s dirty, snobbish and glorious all at once. Fitting, perfect for their purposes, good enough for now.

 

**


	3. Chapter 3

Though he knows Ren and Roan will both be occupied elsewhere for hours, Hux can’t resist checking over his shoulder before typing in the search terms that have been cycling around in his head in recent weeks. He’s at his personal console in their quarters, everything airtight security-wise per his own careful programming, but something still makes him feel like he’s being watched as he types “DISSONIAN MALE, MIDDLE AGE, HORMONES” into the networked database. Even the word ‘hormones’ rankles, and Hux’s jaw clenches to the point of aching as he scans the results. 

Nothing suggests what he’s suspected, that some kind of hormone spike or imbalance in middle age causes men with any amount of Dissonian blood to suddenly want sex upwards of five times a day. He’s squirming impatiently in his seat as he scrolls through the data looking for answers and finding none, hardly able to concentrate for how much he hopes Ren will be back soon enough to give him yet another hard, quick fuck before Roan’s classes let out for the day. Ren already had him twice that morning, in bed and then in the shower, and also last night before they went to sleep. Hux knows he should be raw or at least bored of it by now, but he just feels _ready_. He hasn’t been this brainless with need since he was a cadet, or perhaps since he first started letting Ren have him. 

He closes out of the search and wipes his history when he hears the door to their outer rooms slide open. He’s as embarrassed by the fact that he’s getting hard for the sound of Ren’s heavy footsteps as he is about his theory that something deep within him has shifted to cause this madness, but that doesn’t stop him from tearing his shirt off as Ren enters the bedroom. 

“What’s wrong?” Ren asks, as if Hux frantically undressing has been a sign of disaster in the past.

“Nothing.” Hux groans. “I mean, obviously something! I just feel, I-- ah. Again, Ren, could we?”

Ren does his best not to look alarmed. He’s lingering in the doorway of their bedroom, watching Hux shove his pants down. 

“Aren’t you sore?” Ren asks.

“Clearly not or I wouldn’t be asking!” 

Hux’s face flames; he doesn’t like having to ask for it, especially not so often, but it’s like there’s an itch within him that refuses to be scratched, except in the immediate aftermath of a hard fucking, when he’ll feel so calm and centered, though only for a time.

“Just lie down,” Ren says. He nods to the bed and pulls off his gloves. His old costume is long gone, but he still likes to be covered as much as possible, though his face goes bare these days. “I’ll take care of you, relax. Are you hyperventilating?”

“No!” Hux sits on the bed in his socks and underwear and glares at Ren. “You’re loving this.” 

“Wouldn’t you be upset if I wasn’t?”

“I don’t just mean the fucking. I mean me being--” Hux huffs. “It’s like when I was-- With child. Toward the end, when I needed it three times a day. You loved that.” 

Ren shrugs. “Well, yeah.” 

“You’d love to have me in that state again.” Hux is beginning to become more aroused than annoyed by the idea. That’s the way this has gone, generally, since this mania took root ten cycles ago. He scoots back onto the bed and bends his knees, spreads his legs. “Wouldn’t you?” he says when Ren crawls onto him, still fully clothed minus the gloves. 

“Wouldn’t I what.”

“Love it if you could, ah. Make me fat with one of yours.” 

Hux bites his tongue; perhaps that’s taking it too far. He barely knows what he’s saying. Ren hovers over him and studies his face. He doesn’t seem hurt, just concerned. 

“Your ass needs a rest,” Ren says. Changing the subject. Well: good.

“It needs the opposite of a rest.” Hux moans and flexes up against Ren, lets his eyes fall shut. “I’m not claiming it isn’t alarming. Trust me, I’m alarmed. But I know what my own arse needs.” 

“Shh. Lie still.” 

“I am.”

“You’re squirming. Are you-- Do you have a fever?” 

Ren puts the back of his hand against Hux’s forehead. Hux swats it away. 

“I’m perfectly healthy otherwise. Do you really think I haven’t been scanned by all manner of medic droids at this point? That was my first-- Oh, fuck, shut the door!” 

“He won’t be back for hours,” Ren says, but their bedroom door slides shut anyway, Force-sent. “He has plans with his friends after class.” 

“What plans? Which friends? He told you?” Hux doesn’t say: and not me? 

“I saw him at the gym when they were doing their drills this morning. It’s someone’s birthday, I don’t know. They’re going to the water gardens.”

Hux groans and rubs his hands over his face. In recent years they’ve both been perturbed by Roan’s social success. Like Hux, Ren can’t relate. Neither of them ever had a real friend before they had each other, and they don’t exactly circulate widely in society now.  

“You smell good,” Ren says, leaning in to rub his face against Hux’s neck. “And you’re all warm.” 

“Mhm, I’m-- Yes. Overheated. Ren--” 

“Shh, I’m here now. Gonna make it feel better.”

Hux whimpers, not even sure what Ren means to tend to. Hux’s arsehole, specifically? Or this undulating, unending ache in general? He lifts his hips so Ren can slide his underwear down. 

Ren kisses his way from Hux’s neck downward, lingering on his nipples before moving to his stomach and finally his cock. Hux pulls his spread legs up against his chest and moans with relief, though this wasn’t what he had in mind. Ren strokes the pad of one thumb over Hux’s still-puffy hole while sucking his dick, and it feels like he’s promising to take care of Hux there, too. Everything that Ren does to him, always but especially now, in this fever pitch of need that has suddenly overtaken him, feels so right. Like waking up back in the truest world that exists. 

“I’ll come,” Hux says when his hips have started to stutter, one of Ren’s big hands half-heartedly trying to keep his left thigh pressed to the bed. “If you, if you keep going, ah--” 

“Good,” Ren says. He looks up at Hux, his bottom lip resting fat and soft against the wet head of Hux’s cock. “Want to taste you.” 

Hux can’t remember the last time Ren swallowed his come. They usually don’t have the patience to suck each other to completion rather than moving on to something else. He closes his eyes and arches into it when Ren swallows him to the hilt, and wonders if Ren is doing a kind of experiment here: seeing if Hux’s come tastes different now that he’s in the throes of this mysterious condition. 

“Better?” Ren asks after Hux has emptied himself down Ren’s throat. Ren rests his chin on Hux’s hip and watches him, wary. Hux is still shaking with orgasmic relief, nodding in answer though he’s not really sure. He feels less tightly wound, at least, and less alone with whatever this is. 

“Are you hard?” Hux asks when he’s got his breath back, flushing. 

“Yeah.” 

“You could--”

“I know, I will. I told you, we’ve got time.” 

Hux loses track of time altogether when Ren settles between his legs again, tilts him back and teases at his hole with the tip of his tongue for as long as Hux can stand it. He lavishes Hux with attention there at a leisurely pace, reducing Hux to a jibbering mess before spooning up behind him and fucking him too gently, also at a leisurely pace. Hux drags the bedsheets against his face and moans into them-- quietly, though the door is completely soundproof and he’s sure that Ren is right. Roan isn’t in a hurry to come back here and hang around with them anymore. He’ll be out with his friends until they ask him to come home. 

This is on Hux’s mind when they’re finished, still spooned together, Ren’s spent dick resting soft against Hux’s arse cheek now. Hux is leaking, tired, feeling safe in Ren’s arms but also preoccupied by a collection of persistent, ill-defined worries about Roan, the future, and the deterioration of his mental state that has lead to this need to be in bed with Ren during what should be part of the work cycle for both of them. 

“He was talking about the Peace Bowl again,” Ren says, because of course he knows that Hux has moved from his blissful post-sex haze and into lying awake fretting about Roan’s whereabouts. The galaxy has changed, but not entirely, and Hux still wants to fight the fact that he can’t hover over Roan personally every day, all the time, to make sure he’s not wandering into some dangerous minefield that Hux himself built back in the old days. 

“He can’t seriously think we’re going to allow him to compete,” Hux mutters, though he knows that Roan does. He’s been sheltered, despite everything. He refuses to believe that the galaxy might be out to get him. 

“Why shouldn’t he, though?” Ren asks after a long moment of hesitation that made Hux suspect that question was coming.

Hux shifts in Ren’s grip but doesn’t get very far, too exhausted to pull away from the heat of Ren’s chest or wriggle out of his arms. “Your mother is the founder and chairperson,” Hux says, jaw tightening again. “For one.” 

“She’s-- She won’t be there.” 

“How do you know?”

“Well. Even if she was, I can stay hidden from her. Even at short range. I would protect him--” 

“It’s an unnecessary risk for no reward!” Now Hux has the energy to sit up, frustration and fear flooding in to make his heartbeat quicken. “Unless you consider indulging him to the point of lunacy to have some kind of merit.” 

“It’s not lunacy, in his view.”

“Or in yours, it seems.” 

Hux adjusts his dejected posture. It’s unbecoming, even here in the loose circle of Ren’s arms, to sit with slumped shoulders and indulge in feelings of defeat. He wishes had a cigarette: another intense craving that takes him back to his teenage years. He sighs but doesn’t otherwise resist when Ren draws patterns on his back with his rough fingertips, trying to soothe him in a way that should be insulting. 

“It would look good if the Emperor's son participated,” Ren says. 

“Nobody calls me that anymore. They hardly even called me that back before-- I’m the former Fleet Admiral, if anything.” Hux hates thinking about his title, or lack thereof. He has a specific, somewhat obsessive fear of being called the Fleetless Admiral, though no one has yet dared it where he might find out. “And to whom would this ‘look good,’ exactly? I don’t care about placating those tedious people. Not more than we’ve already been forced to, anyway.” 

Ren says nothing, just goes on stroking Hux’s back. Hux knows what he’s thinking: that they’re lucky, that they should be falling at the feet of the United Republic for letting Hux continue to live in the Outer Rim and preside over his powerless faction of outcasts like a good little disarmed figurehead. There have been at least two attempted assassinations that Hux is sure the Republic was directly responsible for, but he survived them. Now he’s supposed to be glad about that to the point of offering up his only child for their fucking Peace Bowl.

“I can’t do it,” Hux says. “I don’t care if he hates me for it.” 

“Do you not believe I could keep him safe?” 

“That’s not it. I just-- I couldn’t _abide_ it, Ren, how can you not understand?” 

“You’ve endured a lot of things that you once would have said you couldn’t bear.” 

“Yes, thank you, always good to be reminded about that.” 

Hux knows he’s being an idiot, and ungrateful for all they’ve managed to hold onto in the face of so much technical defeat. He still yanks away from Ren’s attempts to settle him down and goes into the fresher to splash cold water onto his face. 

Back in the bedroom, he dresses while Ren sits on the bed watching. Ren is probably late for some training session or diplomatic meeting that Hux wasn’t invited to or informed about. There are emissaries to their region who will only speak to the son of the great General Organa. None of the other disgraced upstart filth will do. 

“Wow,” Ren says. 

“What?” Hux snaps, though he doesn’t want to hear it. 

“Your energy right now. It’s like, uh. I know you’re not, but. It reminds me of when you were pregnant, actually. All of this.” 

“All of what? Oh, shut up, don’t answer that. Do you think scanning for another surprise pregnancy wasn’t the first thing I had the droids do? And wouldn’t you have sensed it, anyway, like you did last time?” 

“I know you’re not pregnant,” Ren says, his expression hardening. “I’m just saying. It’s something a droid obviously can’t diagnose. You need to speak to a real doctor, someone who can work outside of auto protocol.” 

“Are you suggesting I need therapy?” 

Hux didn’t mean to shout that. He turns back to fastening up his shirt, face blazing. Ren is smart enough not to respond. 

“It’s too bad I don’t have any Dissonians around to consult with,” Hux says. “That’s what I could really use. I’m sure it’s something to do with that part of me.” 

“You could always call up Omri Isson.” 

Hux whirls on Ren with a look that must be pure horror, because Ren’s expression melts from stony anger to something like apology when he sees it. 

“I was thinking more of my mother,” Hux says, not wanting the heat rising around his collar to fuel this fire and push them into a real fight. Hearing that name out loud has stunned him into a kind of defensive stillness, his fingers frozen over the top fastener on his shirt. 

“I could find her for you,” Ren says. He’s offered before. 

Hux shakes his head. “No-- I’m sorry. I hate that Roan’s gotten so fixated on this competition, it’s the last thing I need right now, and I hate having things out of my control, especially if they’re residing in my body somewhere, in some place I can’t quite get to.” 

Ren stands, and for a moment Hux thinks he’ll go. Instead he crosses the room and pulls Hux into his arms, squeezing him close. Hux melts into it gladly, still rattled by hearing Ren say the name of Roan’s other biological father. It takes him back to the pure terror of their trip to Slivv three years earlier, when they came within a hair’s breadth of having everything they’ve managed to cling to through years of chaotic scrambling taken from them. Or that’s how Hux saw it, anyway. Ren had insisted, like always, that it would be okay. He truly believes he can protect their little family from anything, even from Roan’s interest in meeting Omri. But he didn’t need to, that day: at the last moment Roan went white and asked them if he had to go through with it after all, though it had been his idea. Ren and Hux fell all over themselves, in shaky relief, telling him that of course he didn’t have to meet Omri if he wasn’t ready. As if they had been, or ever would be, ready for the entire truth to come out.

Hux straightens and pulls back to look at Ren when he’s decided he’s wallowed long enough. “I’m sorry I made that stupid remark,” he says, because surely that’s what prompted Ren’s. “About you wanting to, uh. Make me pregnant, or whatever. With yours.” 

“I don’t,” Ren says, and he grins at the expression on Hux’s face. “I’m glad he’s not-- My family is cursed, Hux. Roan’s the miracle that saved me from all that. He’s perfect as he is.”

“Oh.” Hux feels himself smiling. “That’s true.”

“And we never let him do anything.”

“Now that’s not true!” 

“Just think about it more before you make a decision.” Ren fixes Hux’s hair for him, smoothing it into the regulation style, though nobody’s regulating hair around here these days. “He had a tough time of it for a while there, we all did, but things are better now. More normal, I mean. I think that’s why he wants to do the Peace Bowl. Just to reassure himself that we’re not, you know. On the run anymore.” 

Hux wants to dash directly to the water gardens and find Roan, pull him away from his friends and interview him in a panic about all of this. He restrains himself, returns to work, but within an hour he’s thinking about Ren’s dick again. Though he’s not about to share the exact nature of the problem with her, he finally decides this crisis is worthy of a holo call with Rae. 

Their holo calls started years ago, when the First Order was up against destruction or disarmament, and they’ve become a kind of ritual that comforts Hux. There’s a regular protocol that they both observe each time they speak, and a certain dignity to the routine that reminds him of meeting with his fellow officers during the boom times for the Order. Everything about Rae reminds him of the Order’s once great potential, and though he largely blames himself for squandering it he always feels better after speaking to her. She has a sense of pragmatic perspective that he admires and aims to emulate.

Hux makes himself a cup of tea and brings it to the small holo chamber they have in their personal quarters. He’s alerted Rae that he’ll be calling, and when her holo image appears she has her own drink as usual: a small pour of brandy with ice. They lift their cups to toast each other before having a simultaneous sip. 

“Good or bad news?” Rae asks. 

“Bad,” Hux says. “Though Ren doesn’t think so.” 

“Mhm.” Rae likes Ren in theory but has only ever met him the once, during that brief encounter on Sween, and she reliably takes Hux’s side if there’s a disagreement between them. “Is it to do with Roan?”

“Yes. He wants to participate in the bloody Peace Bowl, as our team’s history expert. His friends are doing it, and I’m convinced he’s only being pressured by them to participate, but Ren seems to think it’s some sort of needed normalization experience for him.” 

“Normalization to whose ideology?”

“Precisely. And regardless of the nobility of his reasoning, I think it’s too dangerous. Even with Ren chaperoning in whatever disguise the Force provides. Something would go wrong, it’s like their whole world is some veil you can only pass through once. I’m not confident I’d get him back, if he went.” 

This goes for Ren as much as Roan, though Hux knows both paranoid fears are absurd, and the idea that Ren would elect to stay with his mother and the rest of them is ten thousand times more paranoid than his also overblown worry about Roan finding a place for himself in the United Republic overnight. Hux gulps from his tea, though it’s still too hot for gulping.

“You’ve danced through the raindrops without getting wet all these years,” Rae says. “So your husband’s sense of security is understandable. I’m sure he’s weighed the risks and judged them minimal. But it’s not as if you haven’t gotten splashed now and then.” 

“Mo’kibna,” Hux says, staring into his tea cup. His ribs ache at the thought of the planet where he was almost trampled to death by a rampaging unagor that had been set loose to kill him. Since then he doesn’t leave this ship much anymore, and space stations feel safer than any stretch of land under open sky. 

“That was indeed unpleasant.” Rae doesn’t agree that it was an assassination attempt, necessarily. Hux thinks it’s hardly a coincidence that unagors are known for being resistant to Force-manipulation. “There is something alarming about the idea of your son participating in that farce,” Rae says. “Even if Kylo could ensure his personal safety. I would err on the side of caution, same as you.” 

“Yes. Exactly. Roan will be disappointed, but it’s not as if this is some needed opportunity for his future career. It’s just a game.” 

“They wouldn’t say so.” Rae smiles faintly to communicate her mockery. She hates the compromise of the United Republic as much as Hux does, though like him she’s resigned to its current grasp on the political landscape of the galaxy. “What do they call it? An important recognition of the universal commitment to diplomacy.” 

“Diplomacy,” Hux mutters. He scoffs into his tea cup. “They would have wiped us out if we didn’t disarm. But that’s diplomacy, whereas I’m a war monger.” 

“You did fire your weapon, Armitage. The warning they gave you was the diplomacy, they would say.” 

“Yes, yes.” His stomach pinches up like it always does when he wanders into a discussion of Starkiller and remembers Roan asking him about it, four years old. _Papa, is it true?_ Roan has always been obsessed with history, just as Hux was at his age. 

“Then it’s settled,” Rae says. There’s a light in her eyes that tells him she knows this is far from true, whatever Hux says about it in the serenity of her company.  

“He’ll just have to understand,” Hux says. “The safety their society seems to offer is an illusion, at least for me, and that extends to him.” Hux’s stomach pinches up more tightly. _I’m sorry_ , he says, internally, to the big-eyed baby version of Roan who still exists in Hux’s head, helpless in the world Hux built for him with his mistakes. 

“However,” Rae says. “There’s never been any violence against our competitors in any past Peace Bowl. They’ve at least kept their word on that score, and it’s hosted in a neutral location.” 

“You don’t actually _watch_ it?” Hux says, eyes widening. 

“Why shouldn’t I?” Rae lifts one shoulder and drinks from her glass. “It’s educational.” 

“Children’s academic trivia?”

“I meant the pageantry, the customs, the concessions they show us and the ones they don’t. I never have learned how to stop sizing up the enemy.” 

Hux smiles at that. He can relate. “I’ve also developed some kind of illness,” he says, blurting this before he can reconsider. Perhaps he can get her valuable counsel without going into detail. 

“You don’t look unwell,” Rae says. 

“Thank you.” Hux is fifty years old now, a surreal fact that he doesn’t enjoy contemplating, but he likes to think that some of Ren’s seeming eternal youth has rubbed off on him. He looks good for his age, particularly considering the constant stress that’s always grinding him under its boot. “Ren would say it’s something-- Mental.” 

“Oh?”

Hux groans and regrets bringing it up already. He finishes his tea. “I seem to have some kind of-- Attachment issue. I can’t be parted from him, lately.” 

“Roan?”

“No, well, yes, if he would indulge me, but he won’t anymore and that’s fine, that’s good, I wouldn’t want him to be still clutching at my legs at this age, however it would comfort me. No, I mean-- Ren. I’m clawing him to my side constantly these past few cycles. Ten cycles, actually. I get into a near-panic if I can’t, ah. Have him. Near to me.” 

“Strange.” Rae frowns and studies Hux’s face. “You’re talking about sex, I presume?”

“Ah--” 

“I tend to drink more of this than I should when I’m undergoing excess stress,” Rae says, lifting her glass. “We indulge in the vices that bring us comfort, to cope.” 

“Well, he’s-- My husband. Not really a vice.” 

“Nor is sex, nor this--” She jiggles the glass of brandy again. “Until it begins to interfere with our efficiency. Armitage, can I be frank?”

“Yes.” Hux wishes he had some brandy now. “I assume you always are.” 

“This is particularly sensitive, or maybe it would be better to say it’s potentially insensitive.” 

“Since when do you dither over sensitivity?” 

Rae gives him a warning look. “I was thinking of you as a boy,” she says. “When you were feeling insecure you would try to move closer to me in these ways you seemed to hope I wouldn’t notice. I remember thinking it was a strange instinct for someone who’d been treated so cruelly by his father to have, this belief that you could find comfort in having someone closer. But I came to understand it was more of an innate longing than anything you’d learned to do. I felt for you, and worried that the first seducer who came along with a tender touch would ruin you.”

“Well-- That didn’t happen!” Hux is red-faced, regretting that he told her that she could be frank and that he’d always assumed she wasn’t protecting him from any stinging analysis such as this, that she had always put all those cards on the table. Apparently not. “Ren is not-- What are you even saying?” 

“I underestimated you.” Rae’s expression is still calm, unmoved; she’s never been bothered by Hux’s rare fits of emotion. “You did well, waiting to partner with a powerful person you could trust. It’s saved you, amidst everything else. If events are conspiring to make you feel insecure at the moment, such as Roan’s interest in visiting the UR and participating in their game, well. That seems like explanation enough for some kind of flare-up of codependency.”

“You’ve lost me,” Hux says tightly. “Perhaps I didn’t explain well enough.” 

“Perhaps. But if that is the case, there’s no need to be so hard on yourself.”

“I’ve not been nearly hard enough.” 

“That’s Brendol talking.”

“Or the United Republic. Anyway, I should go.” Hux’s heel has begun to bounce against the floor. He wants Ren, and wonders if he’s still working in-residence or if he’s gone out again. “I appreciate the chat, but I’m afraid work is piling up, as ever.” 

“Of course.” Rae puts her glass aside, out of view. Hux does the same with his tea cup. This is the unspoken but regimented closing ceremony for their talks. “Good luck with the boy and his expectations,” Rae says, standing. 

Hux stands, too, and salutes. She does the same, as if they share a rank. He supposes they do: those who dreamed of something better, something more, and nearly had it. 

“Thank you,” Hux says, sincerely now. “I feel better having-- Said it.” 

“Then I’m glad to have heard it.” 

Though he does feel better, as soon as he’s striding from the holo chamber with his tea cup, the mania returns. It actually feels stronger for having been voiced: he needs Ren, he’s needy, still that pathetic boy who leaned into any scrap of affection he could warm himself beside. Elevating that impulse to frantic sex feels so much better than just wallowing in Ren’s embrace or whatever else he might try. He strides into the bedroom and is flooded with relief when he finds Ren still there, using their shared workstation to review a report in some language Hux doesn’t read or even recognize. Of course Ren is still here: of course Ren knows Hux needs him. 

“Is that from a Knight?” Hux tries to be discreet as he shuts the bedroom door behind him. 

“An apprentice,” Ren says. He turns to give Hux a surveying look, and Hux can’t tell if Ren hopes or fears that he’s come in here for more sex. “She’s doing research for me in the Bethos system. Some interesting stuff here.” 

“Great. Splendid. Um.” Hux shuffles in place and wets his bottom lip. “Was thinking I might suck your cock, if you’d like that. Would you?”

Ren spreads his legs and pats the inside of his left thigh. “Come here,” he says. There’s a kind of pitying indulgence in his tone, but he’s also getting hard. Ren has always been insatiable. 

Hux sinks to his knees between Ren’s legs and rubs his face against Ren’s growing bulge, shamelessly grateful. He has to bite his tongue to keep from babbling a series of needless love confessions when Ren’s big hand drags through his hair, disordering it again.  

“Take it out,” Ren says, hips shifting up with invitation. “It’s all yours.” 

“Mine,” Hux murmurs, mouthing at him through the fabric of his pants. “Ren?” he says as he tugs them down, Ren obediently lifting his hips. 

“Yes?”

“Am I going insane?” Hux takes Ren’s cock in his hand when he looks up for an answer, wrapping his fingers around the base and bracing himself with its comforting width in his grip. 

“Nah,” Ren says. He runs his fingers through Hux’s hair again. “You’re going through something, sure. But it’s not insanity.” 

“No?” Hux licks at Ren’s shaft, pleased by the throb he can feel against his palm when he does it again. 

“If you’re insane,” Ren says, leaning back and spreading his knees wider, “So am I, right?” 

“Right.” Hux likes the thought that they’re going through this together. Ren is hard for him, after all, again. Hux laps at him and takes a deep breath, exhales against the heat of Ren’s cock. Fine, this is fine. 

“You’re good, Hux,” Ren says as he melts into it, pre-come beading over his cockhead. “You’re so good, look at you.” 

Hux moans, his knees aching pleasantly against the floor as he leans up to take Ren into his mouth fully. Yes, he’s still good at this: still able to do something worthwhile. Ren has kept them safe. Even Rae said so. Hux imagines himself as a concubine who owes his life to a benevolent master. Is that really so far off? He’s very hard in his pants for the thought, his head bobbing on Ren’s cock while Ren strokes his hair. 

“Keep talking,” Hux says when he pulls off, breathless. “Please.” 

Ren says nothing for a moment, considering Hux’s pleading, upturned face. Perhaps he’s wondering if he should keep showering Hux with praise or latch on to his developing fantasy about being Ren’s kept boy. Surely Ren has sensed Hux’s need for both. He touches Hux’s face, fingertips brushing gently over his cheek, and Hux thinks of what Rae said about the first person who ever touched him tenderly, how she feared that poor, desperate, unloved Armitage would be made a slave to the feeling instantly. Ren is the first and only person who’s ever touched Hux like this, so maybe she was right after all. 

“You’re perfect,” Ren says, quietly, like it slipped out without his permission. Hux moans and licks at him with just the tip of his tongue, trying to tease more praise out, or at least some less indistinct praise. 

“I’m not,” Hux says: squirming, petulant. 

“How do you know? You can’t see yourself the way I do.”

Hux huffs. “On my knees between your legs, worshipping your cock?”

“Yes. And everywhere else, too.” 

“I want to ride you,” Hux says, feeling the mania crashing back in, too long ignored for chit-chat.

“No.” Ren presses down on Hux’s shoulders when he tries to rise. “You’ll break. It’s too much.” 

“I’m not that fragile.” 

“Then go find something else to stuff up there. You can suck on me or sit there on your knees and jerk yourself off for me, or both. That’s all that’s on offer.” 

Hux narrows his eyes and takes Ren’s dick back into his mouth, his cock soaking his underwear with pre-come. It’s not often that Ren denies him something he wants in bed. He’s not even sure why it’s so arousing; perhaps because everything is, suddenly. 

After swallowing Ren’s come and rubbing himself through his pants until he’s filled them with his own, Hux is allowed to climb into Ren’s lap. He slumps against Ren’s chest, feeling dirty in a way that’s enjoyable at first. The further he gets from his orgasm the more this dirty revelry morphs into a growing need to scrub what just occurred off his skin. Ren rubs his back and scrolls through whatever research he’s reading on the data screen with his other hand. 

“We never had a honeymoon,” Ren says. 

“Hm?” Hux leaves his head on Ren’s shoulder, eyes closed. Maybe Ren is only talking to himself. 

“It’s a thing, in the Republic. After a couple gets married, they take a trip and just, like, fuck each other for ten days straight.” 

“Oh, so that’s your diagnosis? This is some kind of delayed reaction to our marriage?”

Ren laughs, and Hux can’t suppress a grin. He buries his smile against Ren’s throat and lingers there until he can’t abide his own laziness anymore. With a groan he peels himself off of Ren and slouches toward making himself presentable for dinner, though it will likely be just him and Ren. 

“Did Roan say when he’ll be back?” Hux asks, pausing in the fresher doorway. 

“I told him 22:00.”

“That’s a rather generous curfew!” 

“Yes. I thought that might make it easier when you break it to him that he can’t do the Peace Bowl.” 

Hux grunts and goes into the fresher, anxiety pooling in his gut at the thought of the forthcoming discussion. When Roan was younger, he was as frightened by the deterioration of the Order as Hux; even at eight and nine years old he didn’t protest Hux’s need to keep him close at all times. But things have stabilized now, as Ren promised they would, and Roan’s patience for his parents’ protectiveness has thinned. _I’m not a baby anymore_ , he’s told them, with an infuriating patience, as if he’s taking Hux’s shattered confidence into account and trying to deliver this reminder as gently as possible. He’s a lot like Ren in that way: he anticipates Hux’s reactions with eerie accuracy. 

After a long time spent standing under the hot water feature in their shower, Hux puts himself back together. He at least isn’t desperate to sit on Ren’s cock at the moment. He’s hungry, mostly, and watching the clock, longing to put a request in to security to check Roan’s whereabouts via the networked cameras that monitor every room onboard the ship. 

Ren has ordered dinner from the kitchens as usual. He’s more particular about food than Hux, who tends to return to the same three or four favorite dishes if asked to choose. They’re essentially a small-time farming operation these days, though the terraformed moons they oversee also have a few factories and mines that employ former stormtroopers. Most of what they produce and sell is foodstuff. Hux has become an innovator in farming tech and sells that, too. It’s the only thing he’s allowed to engineer, the furthest from weaponry that he can get.

The result is a wide variety of available ingredients for meals, something that Ren enjoys. Hux tries to appreciate it, too, but if Ren is away he typically just hydrates noodles or orders toast with real butter. Tonight there’s a steak with some kind of thick white sauce and a roasted root vegetable scramble with herbs. They use dinnertime to discuss Order business as usual: production quotas, regulatory headaches imposed by the United Republic, and Ren’s ever-expanding Knights. Even the UR can’t disarm Force users, and while the Knights are technically classified as a religious order, they are the only thing keeping what’s left of the Order autonomous and Hux out of a war crimes trial. 

“I was thinking of hosting the retreat on that planet I scouted at the end of last season, with the canyons,” Ren says. 

“That’s wild space, Ren.” 

“Yes, and that quality suits our needs perfectly.” 

Hux sighs and doesn’t argue. He’s been to Knight retreats before, with Roan, back when he was still unwilling to part from Ren even post-treaty. The retreats are eerie, silent affairs, and Hux had felt like an interloper, but it was nice to have quality time with Roan, just the two of them while Ren was deep in meditation with his brothers and sisters in spiritual arms. 

“Maybe we can offer that instead of the Peace Bowl,” Hux says, perking up over his dinner plate. 

“What?”

“That Roan and I could join you there, and have a holiday while you’re, uh. Honing your craft with the others.” 

“Sure.” Ren looks wary. “Just, you know. His friends couldn’t come. I think that’s the main selling point of the Peace Bowl.” 

“Right, of course, I understand, but this is wild space, you know, an adventure, and last time he came with me to one we had fun. We catalogued creatures and climbed trees--” 

“Yeah, but. He was twelve then.” 

“And he’s fifteen now. So?”

Ren raises his eyebrows. Before Hux can snap at him for acting as if Roan is suddenly a full adult who would reject tree-climbing, the door to their quarters buzzes open for the only other person who has clearance without a permission request: Roan himself, still in his school uniform with the jacket unbuttoned. His hair is damp, presumably from adventures in the ship’s modest water garden, one of the few places available for pure recreation.

“There you are,” Hux says, though it’s actually not 22:00 yet. “Did you have fun?” 

“I guess so,” Roan says. He comes over to the table and seems to search their plates for anything he might want to snatch and eat. He has no sense of formality within their personal quarters, and witnessing this always makes Hux’s heart feel full. The part of him that cowered before Brendol, especially when they were alone together, still marvels at the wonderful strangeness of it. There’s nothing but comfort and ease between the three of them when they’re together here. “Cobin was being a dick because it’s his birthday,” Roan says, taking one of the empty seats at their little dining room table, which has four chairs though only three ever get used. 

“His parents are dicks year-round,” Ren says, and Roan grins. “So that doesn’t surprise me.” 

“What was he doing?” Hux asks, unable to resist. “Something that requires disciplinary action?” 

Roan laughs at the suggestion. “No, just hogging the slide in the water garden and trying to impress everybody with tricks on it, like we were his audience.”  

“You should take a shower,” Hux says. “There are chemicals in that water.” 

“Before you do that,” Ren says, giving Hux a look over the table. “We should talk about the Peace Bowl.” 

Roan groans; he knows what’s coming. “What’s the problem?” he asks. “It’s totally safe. That’s the whole point of it, that it’s a stalemate.” 

“That’s not the right term,” Hux says. “And you’re not an average participant. It’s different for you. I’m sorry,” he adds, voice sharpening when Roan gives him a look. “I know it’s not your fault, but you can’t deny who your parents are--”

“That’s why I thought it would be good to go. To show that we’re not some evil monsters.” 

“It’s a nice idea,” Ren says. “But we can’t assume everyone has good intentions like you.” 

“I don’t have any intentions, it’s not some big plan. It’s just a fun game, and I’d be good at it, I’m the best at history and I can’t just like, download everything I know into the brain of someone else on the team.” 

“You’re ignoring the issue at hand,” Hux says. “I admire your desire to compete, but it’s not important enough to risk your safety.” 

“But you send other kids. Your officers’ kids and kids who used to be in the stormtrooper program. You don’t care about them?”

“Now you’re being deliberately obtuse. There’s no reason for anyone to target random children from the Order. As opposed to the son of the Starkiller and Kylo Ren.” 

“You’re the one ignoring my point! You send those other people’s kids ‘cause you believe they’ll be safe, so that establishes that you think the whole event is safe. You’re just being paranoid because it’s me and you think I’m gonna die as soon as I leave Order territory.” 

“We can argue about who’s being more obtuse all night long,” Ren says. “But you’re still not going.” 

Hux is surprised. Ren was all for it in theory. Hux feels an uncomfortable flush spreading upward from his chest when he considers that Ren might have become so alarmed by Hux’s manic sexual behavior that he’s decided sending Roan away might only exacerbate the situation. Or maybe he’s just parenting in solidarity because he doesn’t want to fight Hux on the matter. 

“Fine,” Roan says, shoving back from the table. He looks down at the floor and goes pink across the bridge of his nose the way he always does when he’s about to do something he knows is bad. “If I can’t do the Peace Bowl, then I want to go see your friend Omri. For real this time.” 

The coldest knives Hux has ever known are those that he realizes he should have seen coming the moment they plunge into him. He hates that Roan still insists on referring to his other biological father as _your friend Omri_ , holding on tight to that particular detail of the partial-truth Hux told him as if he knows the man is really not Hux’s friend at all. Without looking up, Hux can feel both Roan and Ren staring at him, waiting for a reaction. 

“All right,” Hux says. He reaches for his napkin, pats his mouth with it and is pleased that his hands aren’t shaking, though he’s still really too stunned to have much of a reaction. “I’d have to contact him and find out his schedule--”

“Good, do it.” Roan gives Ren a nervous, apologetic glance after saying so. He feels guilt for his curiosity about Omri. Hux wishes he wouldn’t; he can relate, as much as he doesn’t want this meeting to finally happen now or ever. He still catches himself thinking idly of what it would be like to see his mother now. She abandoned him without looking back, but she’s got something that belongs to Hux, precious information about his origins that might not mean anything but which he longs to have a glimpse of even so. “I just want to shake his hand or whatever,” Roan says, mumbling this while he holds Ren’s gaze. “And thank him, uh. For helping you guys with, like. Making me. I won’t freak out like I did when I was little.” 

That was only three years ago, Hux wants to protest. “You didn’t freak out,” he says instead, reaching over to squeeze Roan’s arm. “It was an understandable reaction to a stressful situation.” 

“It was dumb, though. He was right there.” 

“Well, one can’t know how one will feel about such things until the subject of their curiosity is right there, so to speak.” 

Roan snorts and smiles, amused by this phrasing. “Okay,” he says. “So, we’ll do that. We could make, you know, a trip of it.”

“Sounds good,” Ren says, though he’s certainly dying inside, same as Hux. Or worse, since Ren loathes Omri with every fiber of his being, whereas Hux is just terrified of confronting him. 

“All right,” Roan says. He’s still smiling, also blushing. “Thanks.”

Perhaps this was his real goal all along. Hux releases Roan’s arm and reminds him to shower as he heads toward his room. Only when his door is shut does Hux meet Ren’s eyes across the table. 

“It’ll be all right,” Ren says, quietly. 

“I know,” Hux says, though he doesn’t. “Can you-- Let’s go to the bedroom.” 

Hux isn’t asking for sex now; it’s the furthest thing from his mind, though he does appreciate how Ren pulls him close on the bed and wraps around him. Hux can feel Ren’s powerful heartbeat against his back, elevated a bit by his own dread of the proposed meeting, or perhaps with a kind of repressed rage. Ren has never actually interacted with Omri Isson, but he knows that Omri is an unexceptional commercial freighter pilot who once pinched Hux’s arse after ejaculating into it, and that’s enough for pure hatred, though Ren keeps it buried as best he can. 

“I’ll tell him,” Hux says. “Ahead of time.” 

“Right. Okay.” 

They intended to last time as well, but like the whole business to begin with it was impossible to determine the right time to clumsily confess such things. Their initial explanation to Roan had already come too late, when he was eight years old and asking all manner of difficult questions about the past. He also wanted to know, and had for some years, the details of how the Force was used to create him and why, if his parents and the Force had gone to all that trouble, he had no Force sensitivity to speak of. Hux had asked him then if he could be trusted with a state secret: the most important one of all, he said. The Order was crumbling around them and Hux was afraid he would lose Roan, too, if he went on clinging to the ease of the lie for a moment longer. 

And yet, somehow, another lie was what came out when he fumbled to explain. It was a lie that he told himself he could amend later, when Roan was older and knew about sex, one night stands, drunken hook-ups at sad space station bars. How could Hux have said any of that then? He also couldn’t go on with the crap about Force magic doing all the work for them. So what came out was a functioning half-truth: as only a Dissonian’s genetic material could create him, Hux told Roan he’d gone to his friend, a fellow human with Dissonian genes, and asked for his help in making a baby.

“I don’t understand,” Roan said. They were in a charmless bunker at the time, in a secret location at the edge of the Outer Rim, awaiting word about whether they would need to move their covert operations base yet again as the United Allies closed in. Ren was pacing behind them, and Hux was struggling not to snap at him to stop it, as he was radiating nervous agitation. 

“I needed a genetic contribution that only someone like me with Dissonian and human biology could give,” Hux said, trying not to think about the treehouse-style motel room where it happened, or the way Omri had pinched his arse cheek hard enough to leave a mark. “I wasn’t interested in raising a child with him, and he knew this. He only wanted to be a good friend and help me have a baby with your dad, the man I love. Unfortunately, the Force couldn’t really make a baby for us. When that didn’t work, we did it this other way.” 

Hux held his breath and awaited the many questions that he knew were forthcoming. Why did you lie? To me, to everyone? What else have you lied about? Was I wrong to love you unconditionally, naively, can I ever really trust anyone again?

Of course Roan didn’t ask any of this. He looked from Ren to Hux and asked, “But where is he?”

“Off in the galaxy, living his life,” Hux says. 

“Does he know I’m here?”

“Yes, of course! Well, not in this present location, no one knows we’re here, for safety purposes. But he knows you exist and I’m sure he wishes you well. He’s a perfectly nice man, but only a genetic donor in this instance. He just had a bit of material we needed, and he gave it to us, and once we had it you came to life inside me and I carried you until you were ready to be born.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Roan asked, not _why did you lie_.

“We had to tell the people that the Force made you. Because we wanted there to be no doubt that you’re solely ours. So this had to be our secret, the family secret, and now you’re old enough to know it and help us keep it. Do you understand?”

Roan shook his head and burst into tears. It didn’t help that they could faintly hear cannons firing on probe droids that had entered atmo. Hux tried to pull Roan into his arms, but Ren got there first, kneeling down to hold him while he sniffled. 

“Sorry, buddy,” Ren said, stroking Roan’s hair. “My family kept things from me, too. For my own good.” He said so tightly; of course he didn’t really think so, but there was no point in debating Organa’s parenting decisions now that they had committed the same sins. “I know it’s not easy to hear or understand, but it doesn’t change anything. Your family’s right here. Just like always.” 

“I knew I wasn’t really made of the Force,” Roan said, his wet face buried against Ren’s shoulder. “I knew it.” 

“But you are,” Ren said. Hux knelt beside them, feeling like a criminal. “Everyone’s made of the Force,” Ren said when Roan lifted his face. “Even your Pop. When you were growing inside him I could feel you through the Force. We were already connected, all three of us.” 

“Darling, I’m so sorry,” Hux said. He touched Roan’s back, tentative. It felt unallowed, like he had confessed that Roan had never been his child after all, as if the most essential part of him belonged to that stranger called Omri. “We didn’t want to trick you. We just had to wait until you were grown up enough to understand about babies and so forth, and then the war came--” Hux trailed off there, his hand shaking as he swept Roan’s tears away with his thumb. 

“It’s okay, Papa,” Roan said, because even then he must have seen how terrified Hux was that he’d ruined everything, white-faced and trembling and trying not to be sick with dread of the rejection he’d always feared was forthcoming from anyone who might be called family. Hux exhaled with relief when Roan tugged him close for a hug. Ren wrapped his arms around both of them and for a while they stayed like that, listening to the distant cannon blasts. 

“Are you asleep?” Ren asks now, nudging Hux from behind.

“You know I’m not. I won’t sleep at all until this trial is finally faced. Ren, what-- What should I tell him? What should I have said then? I feel like I’ve failed at all this enormously but I still can’t see what the alternatives were, he was a little boy, he’s still a boy, how can I ever-- It would hurt him so much if he knew he wasn’t planned.” 

“I’ve told you, this Omri person is weak-minded.” Ren located him through the Force when Roan was five years old, at Hux’s request, just to make sure they could keep things in hand from afar. “I can make him say whatever you want.” 

Hux groans. That had been their rough, scattershot plan last time, when they stood across the street from a quiet cafe on Slivv where Omri was having lunch alone. Then Roan saved both of them from having to face whatever would have come next when he said he didn’t want to meet that strange man after all, after having gotten a good look at him. All three of them were spooked by how much Roan resembled him. 

“But that’s just more lies,” Hux says miserably, his face half-buried against Ren’s bicep. 

“What’s the alternative?”

“The truth! That I-- That you--” Hux clears his throat and sits up. He pushes his hair back off his forehead. “What if we rehearsed it?” 

“Me and you?”

“Yes, right now. Let’s just-- Let’s hear how it would sound, out loud. From my mouth.” 

Hux checks the door, as if it might have opened a crack while he wasn’t looking. He feels watched already, about to undertake a performance rather than confess a truth. It was all so long ago, and the idea of allowing someone other than Ren inside him seems so alien and impossible now, even in hindsight.

“Okay.” Ren sits up, too, and faces him. “I’m Roan, then.” 

“Yes. Try to react as he would. You should be good at that, actually.” 

Ren’s expression darkens. “Why?” 

Hux snorts. “I’m not comparing you to a teenager! I only mean because you know him through the Force, you know his mind in this particularly intimate way. You’ve felt him react to things with this additional dimension.” 

“Oh.” Ren seems more than placated by the suggestion that he understands their son in a way that even Hux doesn’t. “Right, that’s true.” 

“All right then.” Hux puts his shoulders back and groans. “Oh, fuck, I feel idiotic already.” 

“Don’t, this is a good idea. Just to feel it out. Go ahead.” 

“Yes, right. Well. The thing is, the thing about this Omri fellow, is that when you were quite a little boy the easiest way to describe him was as our friend. It was a difficult bit of news to deliver already, as opposed to the story about Force magic we’d told you before, but we felt you had the right to know it, as it’s to do with yourself--” 

“Sounds a bit stuffy.” 

“Don’t critique me just yet!”

“Okay, sorry.” 

“If you’re going to interrupt, do it with a question you think he’d ask.” 

Ren nods. “So he wasn’t your friend?”

“No. Well, he wasn’t _not_ a friend. He might have been a friend, had we known each other a bit longer. The fact is, I’d only just met him. And I was very lonely and sad, as your dad had been sent away by Snoke, and I thought he was never coming back.” 

“Where was he sent away to?”

“Ren, let’s not get too off topic. He knows about Snoke and all that, he’s a student of history.” 

Ren looks annoyed. “Fine. Continue. I guess he would be sitting in increasingly alarmed silence at this point, anyway.” 

Hux narrows his eyes. “As Ren and I were not together at the time, as Snoke had ordered us apart, and as I was very distraught about this all the time--”

“Aw,” Ren says. 

“He would not make that remark.” Hux feels himself flushing. 

“I was very distraught, too. All the time.” 

“I know! Shh! So, at any rate, I went out, alone. And I met Omri at a restaurant.”

“Just say bar, he’ll know it was a bar.”

“He’s really not all that worldly.” 

“He’ll know.”

“Fine, it was a bar. We met there and spent the evening together. I was very drawn to this man for reasons that were mysterious to me until some months later when I realized I was pregnant, at which point it became clear that he was perhaps the only person in the galaxy with the precise combination of genes that could interact with mine in order to create a child. So you see therefore you were my fate and I was driven toward the miracle of you unknowing but nevertheless with a fierce passion that blessedly altered the course of my life.” 

Ren squints. “You sound a little like you did before Starkiller fired.” 

“I do not!” 

“Keep the word fierce out of it, at least. Like you said, he’s a student of history.” 

Hux feels the delicate beginnings of hope crumble in his chest at the reminder that Roan has seen his spitting Starkiller speech. Of course this will never work. Hux can’t explain himself to anyone’s satisfaction, save Ren, who just forgives him no matter what. That’s too much to ask of anyone else.

“I’m doomed,” Hux says, with as much remaining dignity has he can. He’s given a lot of thought to what he might have said if he’d stood before a Resistance execution squad and was allowed some last words, and whether or not he would have managed to look at all regal and respectable while delivering them. “I don’t know why I try to fight it any aspect of my life.”

“You know I take it personally when you act like your life has come to shit.” 

“That’s not what I meant at all.” Hux reaches for Ren and tugs at his arm. Ren remains in place. “I only have a life at all because you’re in it. Can’t I still feel like a failure for my own shortcomings, while appreciating that you’ve kept me alive?”

“What shortcomings? You were outmaneuvered in battle. It happens. It’s happened to me, and to my mother, and everybody else who gives themselves credit for the UR treaties. Now you’re a leader instead of a conqueror. It’s not the worst thing.” 

“Why are we talking about this?” Hux has gone over it so many times: what he might have done differently, how he would be the one leading the galaxy now if the Order was the still most powerful armed enforcer, how much worse the fallout could have been. 

“I don’t know,” Ren says, still resisting Hux’s attempts to pull him close. “You seemed to want to discuss defeat.” 

“How would you do it?” Hux asks, darkening. He releases Ren’s arm and turns away from him, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “You know, he’s right over there. I could just go tell him the truth now. What would you say, if it was you? If you were me?”

Hux turns back to peek at Ren when he says nothing. Ren looks thoughtful, also hurt. 

“I don’t know,” he says. “I’m not the one who’s good at giving speeches.” 

“It shouldn’t be a speech, though, should it? And you were hardly admiring my speech-giving skills just now, when I practiced.” 

Ren grunts and pushes off the bed. He puts on the long outer tunic he wears outside of their rooms, then his boots. Hux’s already ragged-run heart starts to pound. 

“Where are you going?” Hux asks. 

“Just for a walk. I’ve been cooped up in here all day.” 

With me, Hux thinks. He’s too proud to say it. He shrugs when Ren gives him a cautious glance. 

“Fine,” Hux says. “Think about what I asked. How you would tell him, if this was your secret.” 

“It is mine. I helped you keep it. I told him I was his father, and then that we-- That we went looking for Dissonian seed on purpose. I’m complicit in everything you do, don’t forget.” 

Hux isn’t sure if he was supposed to take that as reassurance or an admonition. He’s still contemplating this when Ren comes over to give him a sharp kiss on the forehead before leaving. 

“You are his father,” Hux says, too late, after the bedroom door has shut behind Ren. 

When Ren has gone, Hux tries to catch up on work but can’t concentrate. He feels a kind of dull, achy version of the intense longing that overtook him previously. Now he’s not sure that he wants sex, exactly, though he also suspects that just being held wouldn’t satisfy him. Finally he tells himself to stop being a coward and rises to go to Roan’s door. 

It still feels strange to buzz the door panel to request entry, but it’s a sensible policy now that Roan is older and requires privacy. Hux wouldn’t expect to just barge in whenever he felt like it, and the soundproof door means he can’t simply call out and ask if Roan is decent. But waiting for the door to unlock so he can enter his son’s room in his own quarters always feels a bit wrong, especially when he thinks, unbidden, of what Brendol would say about this practice. At least Roan lets him in: now and customarily, though sometimes he comes to the door and sticks his head out rather than inviting his parents inside. 

Tonight Roan remains sitting on his bed in his usual sleepwear: sweatpants and an old shirt with short sleeves that Ren got for him during a trip to some lurid Hutt casino that Ren happened into while recruiting a Knight. Hux has never liked the shirt; Ren and Roan both find it hilarious. It features a massive Hutt who sits atop a pile of treasure that represents one’s potential winnings at his casino, with the name of the establishment in Huttese underneath. The shirt used to fall to Roan’s knees and hang on him like a tent. Now it’s tight across his chest. Hux thinks of Omri, who is roughly the same size as Ren, though less impressively cut. Roan certainly didn’t get his suddenly broad shoulders from Hux.

“Did Dad go out?” Roan asks, craning his neck to see through the open doorway. 

“Yes,” Hux says. He appraises the condition of the room as subtly as he can. Everything is in place, neat and orderly. Roan is like him in that way, at least. 

“Fuck,” Roan says. He looks like he might cry when Hux turns to him. “I shouldn’t have-- I’m sorry. Is he upset because of what I said? About wanting to meet Omri?”

“Oh-- No, no, darling, no.” Hux hurries to the bed and sits beside Roan. He takes hold of Roan’s hands rather than pulling him into a full-body embrace, which is what he really wants to do. “It’s not that at all, he just wanted some air.” 

“Pop,” Roan says. “Don’t pretend. I know it was dumb. I shouldn’t have-- I don’t even know why I care. I don’t! It doesn’t matter--” 

“I can relate completely,” Hux says, squeezing Roan’s hands. “And for that matter, so can Ren. Do you know how often he meditates with the express desire of speaking to the ghosts of relatives he’s never met? It’s just interesting. It’s like research into oneself. If I didn’t think she’d disappoint me enormously I’d be curious to speak to my mother.” 

“Pop, are you crying?”

“What-- No!” Hux’s eyes have gotten a bit damp, for some reason, but he’s certainly not crying. “It’s just a-- I mean. I should tell you, this man, Omri. I know we described him as our friend once, but he’s really just a man I had dealings with only so I could have you.”

Now it’s out. Hux is glad for half a second. Roan frowns, his hands twitching in Hux’s grip. 

“Soo,” Roan says, slowly. “He’s not, like. Wait, who is he?”

Hux wants to stuff the words back into his mouth. He can feel his palms start to sweat. 

“A man with Dissonian and human genes, like me,” Hux says. “I just met him and, well. Became pregnant with you. I’ve been meaning to explain it thoroughly, it was just hard to judge the right time--” 

“Wait.” Roan pulls his hands free from Hux's and closes his eyes. When he opens them again, Hux sees one of his own familiar expressions on his son’s face, the kind of increasingly suspicious stare-down Hux might have given a lieutenant on the _Finalizer_ who took too long to explain a data anomaly. “Hang on, you told me-- You told me you used some kind of science.” 

“We did say that.” Hux swallows; the sudden dryness of his mouth makes it difficult. “Because you were so young.”

Roan was ten years old when his class was approved for a beginning course on practical biology with a sexual education focus. Hux had done the approving himself, and had also approved of and in some cases authored the instructional materials. Parents were asked to be prepared to answer any additional questions their children might have at the end of the school day. Hux and Ren had prepared accordingly, or so they had thought. 

“What about me, though?” Roan had asked when they discussed the day’s lesson in mostly general terms, over dinner. Roan wasn’t red-faced or ashamed, and Hux took this as an indication that his teacher had done well in communicating that sex was a perfectly healthy and unembarrassing part of life for those who had interest in it, et cetera. Hux had asked that this be emphasized. He was told exactly nothing about it during his own education, and his fellow cadets had the job of communicating that having anything to do with sex left one open to the most brutal ridicule possible, though the same went for having nothing to do with it, eventually.  

“What about you?” Hux had asked, trying to sound cheerful. He was himself already blushing. Ren was silent and conspicuously motionless, hunched over his dinner plate.  

“Well, I’m Dissonian, a little bit, like you are, a little bit, and you had me. Right?”

“Right, yes.”

“And I’m not really from the Force, from Dad.” 

“Right.” Hux wanted to move his foot against Ren’s under the table, but thought it might be taken as a pitying condescension.

“I’m from your friend, from that material you got from him.” 

“Yes.” 

“What was the material, though? And how did it get into you, with me?” 

“The material, well.” Hux glanced at Ren, who seemed to have projected himself onto an astral plane to avoid this conversation, his eyes unfocused. “You learned about that today, yes? About the human male, what he contributes?” 

“Sperm?”

“Yes! Yes, well, Dissonians have a similar biology, hence their resemblance to humans and our ability to, to have children together, so that was the material we required. Dissonian biology is a bit more complicated, so we can get into that at another time, so as not to confuse things, but suffice it to say that I had the rest of the required material already, ah. Within me.” 

“Inside you.” 

“Yes.” 

“And then you put his-- Did you _drink_ it?”

“No!” Hux could feel Ren’s tension vibrating the air around them. He considered that a glass might burst due to the high concentration of Force-angst. “No, it was just a scientific procedure,” Hux said, feeling like his throat would close up as he remembered how very unscientific his sweaty rutting with Omri had been. “Like a stim.” 

“Oh.” Roan nodded down at his plate, satisfied. “Okay. Maybe I’ll see him someday?” 

“Him? Oh--”

“Your friend.” Roan shrugged. “Because the materials combine to make a baby, right?”

“Right.” 

“And that was me, so I’m, like, half of him.” Roan glanced at Ren regretfully even then. “I mean just in biology,” he said. 

“Biology,” Ren repeated, tightly. “Yes.” 

Hux can’t remember much more about that night other than Ren fucking him very hard after dinner. It had been a relief for both of them, cathartic, and he’d been stupid enough to think the matter was probably more or less settled at that point. 

“Where was Dad?” Roan asks now, his voice rising. “When this-- Not-science thing happened?”

It’s like Roan is asking why Ren wasn’t there to protect him from his own conception. Hux’s mouth hangs open for a moment, stupidly. 

“Did Dad give you some kind of-- _Permission_?” Roan looks fully disgusted now, such that Hux feels the need to stand from his bed, to give him space. 

“Of course not,” Hux says. “We weren’t-- Snoke had separated us. He took Ren away from me, and we thought that was all over, because it was commanded of us.” Ren should be here, Hux realizes. It’s almost cruel to him that he isn’t. Hux wants to rewind all of this, or wake up in bed and realize that his foolish head-first dive into it was only a bad dream. 

“So Dad was gone,” Roan says. His face has gotten pale, some of the initial anger draining into injured shock. “And you just-- Found this guy? And wanted to have a kid, alone?” 

“Well--”

“Or you didn’t even mean to. It just happened.” 

Hux wants to deny it, but all the lies he told to soften the blow have only made things worse. He struggles to keep from dropping to his knees, clasping his hands together and begging. He isn’t even sure what he’d be begging for. _Don’t hate me, don’t look at it that way, don’t leave me_. 

“You were my miracle,” Hux says. “That’s why we told the people that the Force made you. Because it was like that. Magic, and--”

“Stop it about magic! That’s so stupid! Why’d you think I’d ever believe it? Do people-- Do people _know_? My friends always ask me why I can’t use the Force. Does everyone know about this but me?”

“No! Of course not. Laypeople don’t know the ways of the Force. Even the Knights don’t understand it entirely, and, you know, there is a precedent for making a baby with the Force! It has happened, Ren’s grandfather--”

“Everything you say sounds like a lie now!” Roan say, standing. “What the hell? What the _hell_? Does this guy even know he has a kid? Is he even still alive? Did you have him killed so he wouldn’t get in the way?”

“Of course I didn’t!” The color of Hux’s blazing face might give away the fact that he considered it more than once. “That man we saw across the street that day, you must have known that was him, really him, the resemblance--”

“What was your plan that day, if I hadn’t changed my mind? Were you going to let _him_ tell me?”

“No! We--”

“Or was Dad just going to scramble his brain with the Force so he’d say whatever you wanted?”

Roan’s eyes are hard, livid, and also beginning to glitter with unshed tears. Hux can’t help himself: he moves toward him, wanting to give comfort even when he’s the one who caused the injury. Roan steps away and holds up his hands, warning Hux off. 

“I was just waiting,” Hux says, wishing he couldn’t see something of Brendol in Roan’s furious stare, too, because it’s making him feel like he’s shrinking. “I never meant to hurt you, I was trying to protect you, I’m sorry if I waited too long, it was hard to know--”

“Please just get out,” Roan says, his voice cracked. “I can’t think, I need to think for a second--”

“Roan, darling--”

“All I can think about is whatever worse thing you’re not telling me this time. Please, just leave me alone!” 

Hux isn’t sure about the right thing to do, but has he ever been? He leaves, and lets Roan shut and lock the door behind him. Ren is just coming through the front door, looking like he ran to get there. 

“I sensed--” Ren says, and he doesn’t need to say the rest when he sees Hux’s face. 

“Yes. We spoke, I told him-- I’m sorry. Ren. Would you-- Talk to him, would you? I, I’ve--” 

Hux shakes his head and goes into their bedroom, feeling like he’s being pushed along the track of some violent, hurtling amusement park ride that he’d like to get off of now. Inside the bedroom, none of the options seem right: throw himself onto the bed like a waif in a holodrama? Sit at the workstation and stare blankly at the monitor? Stand under the hottest water the shower can manage until Ren drags him out, scalded?

He ends up on the floor at the end of the bed, seated with his back to the footboard. His posture is rigid with tense misery, and he finds himself straining to hear Ren and Roan’s voices. Roan’s bedroom door is shut again, now with Ren inside, and the soundproofing keeps whatever discussion or argument they’re having completely silent, only the dimmest electronic hum from the workstation’s sleep mode audible. Hux stretches his legs out in front of him and tries to imagine what’s going on in Roan’s room. He pictures Roan sobbing and Ren holding him, rocking him, saying I know, I know. What is it they know about a Hux, in a way that no one else does? Little that would recommend him as anything but a substandard partner, parent, or leader, surely. He’s let it all slip through his fingers the way he always knew he would. 

Ren appears in the doorway, and Hux can’t be sure how much time has passed. He’s in a morass of self-loathing that’s limned with self-pity, and he knows Ren can sense it like a foul odor in the room. 

“He’s mad at me, too,” Ren says. He steps fully into the room and the door shuts behind him. “I told him it was my idea to pretend he was mine, and that we used the Force to make him.” 

“Ren! Why?”

“Well. I mean, it was my idea, Hux. Remember?”

Hux frowns and opens his mouth to contest this. It was so long ago, but he does remember Ren showing up and stomping around as if he had a plan for Hux’s unborn baby, saying the baby would be safer if everyone believed he was Ren’s, and assuring Hux that they could hand-wave the details of how they used the Force to have a child together. 

“Nobody ever spelled out the details of Vader’s miraculous conception,” Ren said, as if this was reason enough to shrug it off. 

And why had Hux not responded by asking Ren what they would tell their son when he was old enough to question this? No child of Hux’s would have accepted that fairy tale for long; Roan knew by instinct that it was bollocks even before they told him for sure. Hux had been so frantic with the need to deliver Roan safely and finally hold him in his arms that nothing else about the future had seemed to matter. He really thought it would work itself out, as long as he had Roan in his arms and Ren at his side. It was so unlike him, the lack of planning alone. And now here they are, at the inevitable conclusion of any wild scheme enacted without an exit strategy. 

Ren sighs and sits beside Hux on the floor. When he reaches over to take Hux’s hand, Hux is so relieved by this small gesture of acceptance that he can barely hold a wild cry of gratitude. He curls against Ren, though he knows he doesn’t deserve the comfort. Ren gives it anyway: he pulls Hux fully against his chest and sighs again, his breath warm against the top of Hux’s head. 

“For the longest time I’ve felt like it was my lie,” Hux says. “Like you just went along with it to protect me.” 

“It was literally my idea.” 

Hux laughs, briefly mad with more relief he hasn’t earned, then feels terrible and lifts his face from Ren’s shoulder. “What did he say?” he asks. “Was he cursing me? Saying he wants his own quarters on the other side of the ship?” 

“No. He’s angry, but more upset and confused than anything. He had a lot of questions. I answered them. He asked about my grandfather.” 

“Oh, I said something stupid about-- Force babies, I don’t know.” 

“We talked about that a little. Just to have something to talk about that wasn’t upsetting, I think. It seemed to calm him down.” 

“You’re good at that,” Hux says, clinging. 

“I directed him toward some protected texts on the network. Stuff about Anakin, history stuff. That’ll give him something to think about other than this, if he wants to.” 

“I’m going to speak to him, I have to apologize--” 

“Not yet. Let him process everything a little.” 

“We can’t just leave him alone when he’s hurting.” 

“Yeah, we can. Trust me. He’s angry, he’ll be angry at both of us for a while. He doesn’t want to hear any more of our shit right now, apologies included. But he’ll get over it.”

Hux doesn’t say: isn’t that what your parents thought, too? Ren gives him a look to let him know he heard that anyway. 

“It’s good, actually,” Ren says, rubbing Hux’s shoulder. “Good that it’s out. I didn’t know Vader was my grandfather until I was in my twenties. Maybe we should have told him even sooner. I don’t know. I’m like you. Afraid to ruin things.” 

“I just think about the day he was born,” Hux says mournfully, resting his chin on Ren’s shoulder. “How perfect everything was when we were alone together at last, away from the doctors. Do you remember?”

“Of course.” 

“He was so tiny, and you were so big.”

Ren sniffs. “There was a noticeable size difference, yeah.” 

“I don’t just mean physically in either case. He was all this potential, just, like a newborn star, precious and radiating the sweetest light. And you were so solid and warm and everything I needed, like this whole galaxy I could live in-- Ren, I’m rambling like an idiot, give me a stim so I’ll shut up and sleep.” 

“You don’t sound like an idiot. It was like that, I remember. It was just like that.”

“I wanted to hold my breath and stay that way forever.” 

It tears at Hux that they can never have that back: Roan so small and cozy between them in a bed that felt like an armored ship that would always carry them safely through any system. He loves having a son who can debate with him about galactic politics and retrospectives on history, would change nothing about the man Roan is growing up to be, but they will never have that other thing back, that perfect quiet understanding. Especially now. 

“Can you check on him?” Hux asks. “With the Force? Just make sure he’s okay in there, please?” 

“He’d feel it.”

Roan is very sensitive to being spied on now that he’s older. He trusts Ren not to do it, and this trust means a lot to Ren, who is therefore opposed to any unexpected prying. But during times of crisis it’s a lifeline.  

“It will just remind him how much we care,” Hux says. 

“He’s fine,” Ren says. “I would be able to tell if something was wrong. I can feel the nature of his energy without invading his space. It’s the same with yours, even clear across the ship. I sensed that you both needed me back here.” 

Hux almost feels like he should send Roan a comm message, but there’s something grim about the idea of resorting to that when only a wall separates them. He crawls into bed and lies miserably on his stomach. Ren helps him undress and gives him a sleep stim, applying it to the left cheek of Hux’s bare arse. Even the slight sting of its application has become part of a comforting ritual on nights when Hux knows he wouldn’t be able to sleep without it, and Ren brushes his thumb over the little sore spot as usual. Hux lies naked on top of the blankets and takes deep breaths, his whirling, anxious thought process gradually beginning to slow. Ren is here, so Hux can allow himself a rest. Ren will keep an eye on things while Hux is out. 

“Look,” Hux says, speaking mostly to himself, face pressed against the bed. “I know I’m a bad person.” 

“You’re talking in your sleep.” The mattress dips when Ren climbs into bed. He smoothes Hux’s hair down. Ren is like a warm wind across the freezing tundra of Hux’s life, Hux half-thinks.

“I just wanted to be a good one for him,” Hux mumbles, slurring. “Only for him was all. But not even that.” 

“Shhh,” Ren says, until the sound turns into a warm wind that ruffles through Hux’s hair in a dream. 

**

When he was the Fleet Admiral who presided over the most heavily weaponized power in the galaxy, Hux had access to the best drugs that money could buy. Now that is not so much the case, and he wakes feeling groggy and hungover from the sleep stim, longing for the designer ones that came with built in slow-release vita-stimulants for a rejuvenated feeling upon waking. He rolls over and groans at the ache in his head and his jaw. He was either grinding his teeth in his sleep or overmuch during his waking hours the day before.

He dresses for the meetings he’ll attend, glad that he has time enough to eat and glad to see Ren lingering in their kitchen when he leaves the bedroom. He glances at Roan’s bedroom door. It’s closed as usual, but the green light on its panel indicates it’s unlocked. 

“He’s gone already?” Hux asks, hating how those words sound. Like defeat. 

“He left early for class,” Ren says. He’s fussing with some difficult to peel fruit at the counter, carefully stripping away stringy pulp. 

“Did you speak to him when he was on his way out?” 

“I asked him if he was okay.” 

“And?” 

“He said yes, angry-like. Like he didn’t want me asking.” 

“Oh.” Hux slumps against Ren’s back and wraps his arms around him. “I’m going to try to work all day,” he says. “To take my mind off things. And then I think we should all have dinner together.” 

“Good plan.” 

“I was thinking, after he’s been around his friends all day-- It will put the weight of this in perspective, yes?” 

“Sure.” 

Hux holds onto Ren more tightly and tries to believe this. They’ve never had a real blow-up fight with Roan before, which is part of what makes this even harder. It’s new terrain for all of them. There’s no protocol. Hux has never even had to punish him strictly. He’s a good boy who wants to make them happy. 

“I feel terrible,” Hux says. “Physically and otherwise.”

“I know, I sensed it when you were sleeping. Here, eat this. It will help with your headache.” 

“A piece of fruit? I doubt it. We do have actual medicines.” 

“This is better. Try it.” 

Hux is skeptical but unwilling to argue with Ren about the medicinal properties of fruit or anything else right now. He feels a tug of the sexual mania pulling at his gut and wonders if he’d even be able to get an erection as he stuffs pieces of the sour-ish fruit in his mouth. It’s something to do with needing to feel like Ren is fully on his side, he thinks. As if Ren is going anywhere, but at moments Hux imagines he could be, because hasn’t everything else evaporated around him? When Ren is inside him, there’s a particular comfort in knowing he’s as close as he can get. 

The fruit does help, though Hux still has a thinned-out headache as he enters his meetings. It’s a relief to spend his workday thinking about something other than the disaster with Roan and navel-gazing self analysis, but he’s still desperate for a fuck by mid-cycle and comms Ren to meet him in an unused conference room for a quickie. 

“Sorry,” Hux says, red-faced when Ren arrives. “I don’t know why I’m like this. Now, of all times--” 

“I’ll show you why you’re like this,” Ren says, closing in on him, and he does: Hux remembers before Ren is even inside him, because Ren was thoughtful enough to bring lubricant and because he holds Hux over the flames of what he needs just long enough to make finally getting it feel so fucking good. Hux moans against the table he’s bent over, fogging its glossy top with his breath. He’s like this because he’ll never get enough confirmation that they fit together this well.

“Did you--” Hux tries to ask.

“Yes,” Ren says, still fucking into him. “Monitors are off.”  

“Oh. Ren, thank you, thank you-- Ren--”

Hux mashes his lips together before he can say _thank you_ a thousand times more. He arches his back, tilts his hips up and moans for the better angle, then again when Ren uses the Force to hold him just there.

They kiss for a long time afterward, taking more care with it than they normally would after meeting up for a fuck in the middle of a workday. Hux sits on the table, buttoned up and presentable again, even with Ren’s come leaking into his briefs. Ren stands between Hux’s spread legs, leaning in for soft, wet kisses until they’re both in danger of getting hard again and have to move apart. 

“I don’t think this is normal for people our age,” Hux says, straightening his hair. “Even for Dissonians. I looked it up.” 

“Looked what up?”

“This-- Never mind. Have you seen Roan?”

“No, but I checked to make sure he showed for all his morning classes. He’s okay.” 

Hux grunts doubtfully. How could their baby be okay after what they’ve done to him? The years of lies, the careless half-truths, and Hux’s bungled attempt to clear everything up last night. 

“Should we invite him to dinner?” Hux asks, wincing at how awful and formal that sounds. “I want him to know that it’s mandatory that he come and talk to us. But I don’t want to get his back up with a demand while he’s still so angry.” 

“These are uncharted waters,” Ren says, unhelpfully. “We usually don’t have to, uh. Cajole him into things. We just ask and he does them.” 

“Yes, I know, that’s the dilemma. How did the two of us end up with an agreeable child?”

“Hard to say. Maybe it was the war.” 

Hux wilts, nodding. The horror of uncertainty in those times made them even closer than they already were. For almost all of Roan’s eighth year they lived in a hellscape of secret locations as they were pursued through the galaxy, until Hux had to choose between asking the Knights to fight a war against the armada that had been stolen from him piece by piece or surrendering the few ships he’d managed to hang onto after he realized the networked connection required by his own ship-disabling code was being used to override and capture his still-functional destroyers. It happened so fast, just as Hux’s mastery of the galaxy had when the disabling weapon was new and took the Resistance and then the Republic itself off guard. Just as Starkiller worked perfectly and was destroyed completely within the same cycle. It had always been a battle of technology, and all the UR needed was to find the one slicer in the galaxy who could unravel and reconfigure Hux’s code. And found her they did. 

“Don’t despair,” Ren says. He cups Hux’s cheeks in his hands and tilts his chin up. Ren can always feel it when Hux starts crawling backward through all his doubts and mistakes at any mention of the war. “The hard part’s over, and the recovery is never as hard as you expect it to be.” 

“What if he still wants to meet this man?” Hux asks, grabbing Ren’s wrists. “What then? Isn’t that the hard part?”

“What are you afraid of?” Ren asks. There’s a sharpness to his voice that makes Hux regret mentioning Omri at all. “You think Roan’s going to take one look at him and say, ‘ah, yes, that’s him. Off I go with my true family. At least he never lied to me.’”

Hux has to forcibly suppress a thought about Ren more or less having done that to his family when he left them for Snoke. 

Ren clearly senses it anyway. His nostrils flare and he takes his hands from Hux’s face. If he still had a helmet, Hux is sure this would be the moment when he made a point of putting it on. 

“You’re being ridiculous,” Ren says instead, his voice flat. 

“I know. Don’t you think I know? Ren. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what? You’re only torturing yourself. I’ll see you at dinner.” Ren moves toward the door, walking backward and keeping his eyes on Hux. “What should I order from the kitchens?”

“Would it be too obvious if we did his favorite meal? Is that cheap?”

“Since when are you or I above being cheap?” 

Ren smirks at Hux’s answering expression and leaves. Hux slides off the conference table, checks it again for any incriminating evidence left behind, and heads toward his next meeting with a pleasant ache in his arse that will sustain him through the end of the day, hopefully. 

The endless meetings are dull, but he likes to stack them back to back so he can get the week’s busywork over with in one day, and today he’s glad for the usually exhausting company of so many bureaucrats. They keep his mind from wandering too far but also don’t demand the level of attention he’d need to employ if he was working on his hydration core design, or any of the others projects that require solitary contemplation. That would not be possible today. 

Hux’s professional, collected countenance begins to feel very flimsy as he strides toward home after his final meeting. _You’ve become weak_ , he tells himself, in Brendol’s voice. Spittle and all. _Grow up and stop pretending it can be any better with your own son. Of course he’s come to hate you, too. Did you ever really think you were so different from your old man?_

This is not helpful, Hux realizes. In fact it’s part of the weakness that has crept into him since he lost his fleet and with it his chance to shape the galaxy according to his own design. He’s developed this habit of imagining what Brendol would say or think when there is no point in doing so except to upset himself further. He also can’t seem to stop comparing Roan to Ren at his age, just on the cusp of closing himself off to his family forever. He looks for cycles and patterns in their familial histories as if they’re locked onto an unchanging track and not always making a path of their own according to the circumstances of these lives, right now.

Hux is the first one home, and he uses the time alone to shower and dress in more casual clothing. But not too casual, he decides, selecting a tunic that he last wore when Ren and Roan coaxed him into joining them on a space station for a few hours of anxious crowd-mingling. Once he’s dressed he puts his boots back on and tugs the cuffs of his trousers over them. He’s considering comm’ing Ren when the front door opens, and he’s overjoyed to see that it’s Roan, home directly after class for once, until he sees the closed-off expression on Roan’s face. 

“Darling,” Hux says. “There you are. How-- How are you?” 

“Still mad at you,” Roan says. He dodges Hux’s gaze and seems ashamed of himself for admitting it, lingering near the door. Hux wants to run to him and smother him with affection but doesn’t dare a step toward him. 

“Understandable,” Hux says. “You can be mad for as long you like, I’ve certainly earned it.” 

“Yeah, I know. Where’s Dad?”

“He’ll be on his way back from the holo chamber.” Ren uses the large communal one for conferences with his top Knights; there are so many of them now that their projections won’t fit in their personal call chamber. “We were hoping you’d have dinner with us.” 

Roan says nothing and walks into his room. Hux lets him go. The sound of the door’s lock activating is like a needle piercing Hux’s heart, though that could have gone much worse. He paces and thinks of making himself a drink, but decides against it. Ren arrives, and Hux feels like the vice around his lungs has loosened just a bit. 

“He’s in his room,” Hux says, almost whispering, though Ren will have sensed this and Roan wouldn’t hear him if he shouted. 

“Good,” Ren says. “Dinner’s on the way. I ordered noodle casserole.” 

Roan’s favorite. Hux nods, distantly pleased that Ren went with his suggestion. He gives Ren a stiff hug and resumes his pacing while Ren removes his heavy outerwear in the bedroom. Hux can’t stop glancing at Roan’s door and bracing himself for Roan to come through it with his things packed and slung in a bag over his shoulder, on his way to go stay with some friend indefinitely. 

Their meal arrives by service droid, and Hux arranges it on the dining room table while Ren tries the buzzer on Roan’s door. It unlocks after a few long seconds during which Hux held his breath. 

“Food’s here,” Ren says when Roan stands in the doorway, jacketless but otherwise still in his school clothes. He looks uncertain and unhappy and it rips a hole in Hux’s chest not to run to him, not to be able to do anything to change what’s already been done.

“It’s noodle casserole,” Hux says, too loudly and fully hearing how pathetic he sounds. 

Roan drags his fingers through his hair. It’s a very Ren-like gesture and leaves a single cowlick standing up. His hair has darkened closer to brown than red as he’s gotten older, but it still has a particular reddish sheen that Hux considers to be the most beautiful color in the galaxy. He’s seen girls and boys swooning in Roan’s presence on the rare occasions that he tolerates the noise and chaos of Roan’s friends. 

“Can you both stop staring at me like that?” Roan snaps.  

Hux isn’t sure how he was staring, exactly; probably with some combination of goopy pride and transparent longing to be forgiven that Roan would understandably find repulsive right now. He busies himself with the plates on the table and takes his seat. 

“Come on,” Ren says, and Hux is envious when Roan lets Ren touch his shoulder and usher him toward the table. Will Roan ever accept an embrace from Hux again? Ren can say it was his idea all he likes, but Hux was both the bearer of the bad news and the one who boldly lied to his son’s face in almost every instance that they discussed his parentage. Ren had always gotten quiet. That was smart, it turns out. 

Once they’re all seated, Hux suppresses the urge to fill the tense silence with conversation. Both the idea of making small talk and of diving straight into things where they left off last night feel wrong, so he allows the silence to stretch and solidify around them. He can only wonder if Ren and Roan are bothered by it as they spoon noodles onto their plates, both of them grim-faced. 

“Anything you want to say to us?” Ren asks when Roan stares forlornly at his steaming pile of noodles and cheese, fork in hand. 

“ _I_ have to be the one who talks?” Roan asks, incredulous when he looks up at Ren, then Hux. 

“You don’t have to do anything,” Ren says. “But we want to listen to you if you have some things to say. Even if you just want to tell us off again. That’s fine.” 

“I do have something to say.” Roan presses his shoulders back and grips his fork more tightly. “I have a request, actually, and I need you to take it very seriously.” 

Oh, please no, Hux thinks. Here it is. Roan wants to leave. To go off and find Omri Isson alone. To apply to the UR junior pilot program and fight for the enemy. To meet Organa, too, while he’s at it. 

“Okay,” Ren says when Hux finds he cannot speak. Roan keeps glancing at him and then down at his plate again. “We’re listening.” 

“I want to hear everything else you guys have lied to me about,” Roan says. “If you tell me right now I can forgive you, I think, but if I find out later that there’s more, I won't be able to trust you ever again.”

Ren and Hux exchange a glance. Hux is earnestly scrambling to remember what else they might have lied about and when. They told Roan about Starkiller, about Ren’s crimes, about his family. There is one thing about that last bit left unsaid, however. Hux’s heart sinks when he sees that Ren has thought of it, too. 

“We both killed our fathers,” Hux says, so that Ren doesn’t have to. His heart starts pounding when Roan drops his fork. “I-- Didn’t directly, but I participated in the plot that killed Brendol. Ren was commanded to by Snoke. I’m so sorry. I know you don’t want to see us monsters. But we were, and, yes. That’s the last secret.” 

“What--” Roan says softly. He drags his wide-eyed stare from Hux to Ren, who is doing that astral projection-type unfocused gaze thing now. 

“Snoke fed the evil in both of us until it had reached its full potential,” Hux says. “Ren killed him to save us all. But it couldn’t undo what we’d done at his command. Or that we willingly carried out his orders. We didn’t fight him. For a long time we didn’t even want to.” 

Roan says nothing. No one moves. The cheesy, comforting smell of the noodle casserole seems like a joke at everyone’s expense, suddenly.

“Brendol hit you,” Roan says, glancing up at Hux. He’s white-faced again, shocked again. But Hux has to respect his request to hear everything. He isn’t going to lie again. “Right?”

“Yes.” 

“I’ve read about him. The things he did, how he, he encouraged his cadets to kill each other.”

“It’s all true.” 

Roan swallows. He glances at Ren, begging with his eyes. Wanting to be told something that will make what happened less horrible. 

“My father wasn’t like Brendol,” Ren says. He’s not looking at Roan, at anything. The color has drained from his face, too. “He was a good man. Snoke-- But it was me, too. I let all of what Snoke asked for happen. I don’t have an excuse. Han knew, I think. I tell myself so, anyway. He saved me. I was looking him in the eyes when I, and-- It all fell away. Snoke commanded it because he thought it would take the last of my connection to them from me. But it broke Snoke’s hold on me instead. I’ve always told you I gained the power to kill Snoke through the need to protect you and Hux when I sensed that you needed me. That’s true. It’s also true that killing my father destroyed a part of me forever. Some good things went away with that part of me. Things I’ll never get back. But so did all the diseased rot that would have destroyed everything in time. I couldn’t deny that I hated what I’d done, that I hated myself for doing it, right away and in all the months and years afterward. I see him in my mind’s eye all the time. His face, when. That’s what started me on the road back from hell. But there are bridges that can’t be uncrossed.” 

Hux can see how hard it is for Ren to turn toward Roan after this confession, can feel how everything in him is screaming as he gathers the strength to hold his son’s wide-blown gaze. Roan’s lips are parted. His arms hang at his sides.

“Did you love him?” Roan asks. The look on his face is enough to show that he already knows the answer. Ren talks about Han infrequently, but never with the kind of bitterness Hux has for Brendol’s memory. 

“Yes,” Ren says. 

“And still, you--?” 

“Yes.”

“That can’t be real,” Roan says, softly. He shakes his head. 

“I know,” Ren says. “That’s how it feels, when I think of it now. I want to fight my own memories. But it’s true, it happened. It’s the worst truth I have.” 

Roan looks down at his plate. He puts his hands on the table, and Hux is sure he’s going to shove away and leave the residence without another word. 

“Snoke made you do it?” Roan says, cautious and small, wanting to make some kind of sense of this. 

“It was a command that he gave me. Those were not to be questioned, per his conditioning. But my hand did the deed.” 

Roan shakes his head again. He stares down at his plate and chews his lip. “I haven’t eaten all day,” he says, sounding like he’ll cry. 

“You can eat!” Hux says, experiencing a kind of ridiculous panic at hearing this, as if Roan is pledging himself to a hunger strike. “We should all eat, in fact. Let’s just sit here quietly and eat. And think. I suspect none of us wants to be alone just now, so. Here, I’ll start.” 

Hux’s stomach is in knots and his throat feels too tight to allow for even a sip of water, but he takes a huge forkful of noodles and cheese and stuffs it into his mouth as a kind of act of faith, forcing himself to believe they can all go on existing after this moment. He takes another bite, and another, swallowing without tasting anything, waiting to see if this desperate plan will work. 

Ren remains frozen, but Roan forks some noodles into his mouth. Watching his son eat enables Hux to actually taste the fatty butter and salt on his own tongue, and it’s like coming back to life, though also like hanging onto a cliffside by his fingernails. Ren picks up his fork and works a noodle onto it very tentatively, as if he’s afraid to kill it. He eats a small bite and chews, eyes unfocused again. 

How did they never discuss whether or not to tell this truth? Ren told Roan his father died fighting with the Resistance, and Hux never imagined that they would need to go into detail about how. What did it matter, when Roan would never meet Ren’s family and hear their version of the truth? Hux eats more and tries not to guess at what’s going on in Roan’s head or Ren’s. It’s enough to try to contend with his own thoughts at the moment. Forking and chewing noodles is helping him from going fully mad, at least. 

“Anything else?” Roan asks, glancing up at Hux with another look he recognizes. It’s the same steely expression Hux practiced as a cadet, until the confidence he intended to project was real. _Is that all you’ve got? Think I can’t handle more? Try me_.

“That’s really it,” Hux says. “You know all the other horrors already.” 

Roan pushes his noodles around on the plate. He ate quite a lot of them quickly, same as Hux. Ren is still eating, but slowly, like he’s determined to join them in this activity but afraid he’ll be sick. 

“It’s so weird,” Roan mumbles.

Hux and Ren both go perfectly still. Ren stares at his plate. Hux stares at Roan, waiting to hear which weirdness he’s remarking on. Their lives have a wide variety. 

“What is, darling?” Hux asks when Roan only eats more noodles. He usually avoids ‘darling,’ as it’s an endearment that embarrases Roan, but in recent days he can’t hold it in. 

“To come from all this,” Roan says, glancing up at Hux. “And now this random guy, too. I mean, I knew that part, sort of. I think I even knew he wasn’t really your friend, since he’s never, like, around. People ask me what it’s like to have you and Dad for parents. Like it must be really intense or whatever. But it’s not. None of that old stuff feels real to me. And I feel like it should, and like this Omri guy should feel real to me, too, but he doesn’t. I guess that’s why I wanted to meet him.”

Hux notes the past tense but doesn’t remark on it.

“I know the feeling,” Ren says. “About the past. The complications. Having parents who fought in wars. The things they lost that you can’t get a grip on. Don’t ever think it’s your failing.” He looks up at Roan, and his arm twitches as if he wants to reach toward him, but he doesn’t. “You don’t have to come to terms with what we’ve done. Only we can do that.” 

Roan is quiet, thinking. Hux envies Ren enormously for being able to read Roan’s energy with the Force. Hux wants to speak that language, just for their son. He’s lost interest in the inner thoughts of anyone else, except for Ren, who tells Hux everything anyway. 

“So that’s not what I expected you guys to tell me when I asked for the rest of the truth,” Roan finally says, mumbling this at his noodles.

“Indeed,” Hux says. “But it’s the only other thing we kept from you. Just because of the awfulness of it. I’m sorry you had to hear it at all.” 

“Well. I asked.”

“I took your request seriously, as you specified.” 

Roan nods and glances at Ren, who has stopped eating noodles. He’s only managed to finish a quarter of the portion he served himself. 

“I think I’m done,” Ren says, certainly aware of the weight of Hux’s and Roan’s attention on him. Ren stands, puts his hand on top of Roan’s head without looking at him, then walks into the master bedroom. He doesn’t shut the door. It’s possible he’s in such a spiralling daze that he doesn’t realize he left it open.

Roan meets Hux’s gaze and widens his eyes. “Sorry,” he whispers. 

Hux shakes his head as hard as he can. “Don’t be. Not even a little.”

“I didn’t mean to make it worse.” 

Roan’s eyes get pink at the corners. Hux springs out of his chair. 

“Pop,” Roan says, moaning this in complaint when Hux rushes over to hug his shoulders. Roan doesn’t push Hux away, just sighs and pats his wrist. 

“You could never make anything worse,” Hux says, eyes closed, still holding him. “We wanted to protect you from what we were before you came. You knew that part already, that having you changed everything, made our lives immeasurably better, saved us? Yes?”

Roan shrugs, and Hux takes this as a cue to release him but stays close, one hand on Roan’s shoulder. “I guess,” Roan says when he looks up into Hux’s face. “Why do you think your mom would disappoint you?” he asks. “If you met her?”

“Well. Because she left me with Brendol after stealing his credits. And if that’s not the whole story, she’s never reached out to me to say otherwise. If she’s still alive, she must know where I am by now.” Hux knows she’s still alive. Ren has told him so.

“Maybe she’s afraid.” 

“What, of me?”

“Well, yeah. Don’t people think you’re this ruthless villain?”

“Oh, darling. You’re old enough now to know that I am one.” 

“That’s not funny,” Roan says, but he smiles a little and pushes at Hux’s hip. Hux doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he wasn’t really joking. “Go make sure Dad’s okay,” Roan says, whispering. “I feel-- Bad? I didn’t mean to make him say all that.”  

“You deserve to know where you came from,” Hux says. He bends down and kisses the top of Roan’s head, a gesture he hasn’t dared often in the teenage years. “The whole story,” he adds when he straightens. “I’ll always be sorry that we obscured the truth for so long, about-- Your other biological component.” Hux refuses to use the word parent or father for Omri, even if only in the technical sense. “It ate at me daily, as soon as you were old enough to ask questions.”  

“What was he like?” Roan’s nose wrinkles, presumably because he’s imagining Hux having a one night stand. “I saw he looked like me, that day on Shivv, and that was just. So weird. You once told me he was nice, is that true?” 

“Honestly?” Hux says, deflating. “He may have been nice, but it’s not the first term that comes to mind. He was cocky and I was out of my mind, I think because something in me knew.” 

“Knew what?”

“That this was my path to you.” 

“You sound like Dad.” Roan cranes his neck, looking toward their open bedroom door. “What’s he doing in there?” he asks, whispering. 

Hux can only shake his head. Sulking, suffering, regretting, self-hating. 

“Better go check on him,” Roan says, nudging Hux in that direction. “Tell him I’m stunned but not mad. It doesn’t feel real enough to be mad about, you know? At least not right now.” 

Hux thinks of Starkiller, how sad and skittish Roan had been in his attempt to connect that unparalleled horror to his parents. Though he likes to think of it as only something they have in common, Hux suspects Roan’s obsession with history stems from that formative moment when Hux confirmed he’d done it, all of it. 

“Yes,” Hux says. “I know.” 

Ren is stretched out on the bed as if for his funeral procession, hands folded over his chest. He’s left the lights on and is still dressed in his workday clothes, boots and all. When Hux walks in and shuts the door behind him, Ren rolls onto his stomach and buries his face in their pillows. 

“I don’t want to talk,” Ren says, his voice muffled but firm, warning Hux not to test him on this. 

“That’s fine,” Hux says. He readies himself for bed, wary of the growing sense of peace that’s settling over him. Yes, the horrors are still there, but the frank, unhidden awfulness of them somehow feels less poisonous than the lies did. 

When Hux has washed and dressed in his well-worn nightclothes he returns to the bedroom and takes Ren’s boots off for him. He fetches his comm from its portal and climbs into bed with it, close enough that Ren can reach for him if needed. After scrolling through new messages he reaches over and strokes Ren’s hair, drawing it away from the back of his neck. He sees Ren swallow heavily and strokes him again. For a while this goes on, Hux reading and petting, Ren allowing it.

“One of the many monstrous truths about me is that I wouldn’t change a single thing about you if I could,” Hux says. He’s still looking at his comm, still stroking Ren’s hair. “Not even your past. Not one detail. The complete hell of it compliments mine and made you perfect for me precisely. That’s a kind of selfishness I’ll never shed, that I’m glad about it to this day. Because it made you exactly who you are.”  

Ren sniffs into the pillows. It’s a kind of criticism and amused appreciation all at once, Hux thinks. 

“I still fantasize about saving you from Brendol,” Ren says, turning his face toward Hux. “Little you. Armie.” 

“Well, I saved myself from him, Ren.” 

“Yeah.”

“Just as you saved yourself from Snoke, and the rest of us therefore. Do you want something more to eat? You barely scratched at your dinner.” 

Ren rolls onto his back and groans. He has his eyes closed and doesn’t seem to be considering Hux’s offer of food. His eyes flutter open when Hux reaches over to press two fingertips against his lips. Ren puckers for him tiredly, then gives his fingertips a little lick.

“That was fucked up,” Ren mutters, with Hux’s fingers still pressed to his mouth. 

“It could have been much worse.” 

“That’s what I’m always saying to you.” Ren takes Hux’s wrist and moves his hand away from his mouth, holds it against his cheek. “About the war. About everything.” 

“Yes, I know. I suppose it’s about time I started listening when you make that point.” 

“Is he okay?”

“He’s more astounded than demoralized. He’ll probably want to read all about Han now. You know how he likes to investigate us in context.” 

Ren groans and pulls Hux’s hand over his eyes. “Should I talk to him?” 

“Yes, I think so. He’s worried about you.” 

“About _me_?”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Ren.” Hux’s eyes burn with the threat of tears, but it passes quickly. “We raised a good person. Against all odds.”

Hux doesn’t often lie awake in meditative thought, and even when he’s fever-sick with insomnia everything in him protests that he could at least be getting some work done if he’s going to be awake anyway. Tonight, while he waits for Ren to return from Roan’s room, it seems wrong to try to do work or anything else. For once, motionless contemplation seems to be what’s in order.  He stares at the ceiling and tries to decide how he feels about things generally, after all that’s transpired. It’s tedious and he has no epiphanies, but he can’t deny that he feels better than he did before these various truths were out.

When Ren appears at the bedroom door, Roan is with him. Neither of them are teary-eyed or scowling. Hux sits up on his elbows and waits to hear whatever they’ve come to say. 

“Tell him,” Ren says to Roan. “He won’t believe me if I say it.” 

“I was just thinking,” Roan says. He walks into the room and sits on the end of the bed. Hux sits up fully, braced for something awful and surprised when he realizes he could take it. What else, let’s have it all, why not. 

“Thinking?” Hux says when Roan hesitates.

“About the whole thing, with Omri. If he’s not your friend, it seems like a bad idea to meet him.” 

“Oh?” Hux glances at Ren. He’s leaning in the doorway, looking calm enough. 

“I mean, I don’t know, I guess he couldn’t really do anything, but he might be a dick if we tell him our secret. What if he threatens blackmail?” 

“I told him,” Ren says when Hux glances at him again. “A mind wipe would remove that idea easily enough.” 

Roan groans. “Yeah, but I don’t like the thought of that either. I’ll meet him someday, maybe, I don’t know. I know we can find him again if I want to. But I guess he seems kind of-- Boring? You know? If he’s just some guy who had the right biology? And then I thought it would be way more interesting if we could find your mom, and Dad says he can.” 

“My--” Hux glances at Ren, who makes an apologetic face and holds his hands out as if to say this was not his idea. “My mother? Mine?”

“Yeah, my grandmother. The half-Dissonian, the one who outsmarted Brendol. I want to know her story. I’d come with you, if you want. So you wouldn’t have to do it alone.” 

“Darling--” Hux says. 

Roan groans, Ren-like, and throws himself down onto the bed in exasperation, also like Ren. “Enough with the darlings, please,” he says. “I always know you’re freaking out when you call me that.” 

“I’m not freaking out. I was just going to say, you don’t have to backtrack on what you want to protect us. Least of all from blackmail. We’ve considered the various ways this man might react to the news that I had his child, believe me. It would be handled deftly without you needing to worry about it.” 

“That’s not it,” Roan says, sitting up again. “You put the idea in my head, and the more I thought about it, the more I felt like if I had to pick one of them to meet right now, I’d pick my Grandma Hux. She’s older, anyway, so there’s less time, right?” 

“Less time?” Hux feels like he’s dreaming now. Maybe he fell asleep during his contemplation. 

“We don’t have to,” Roan says, looking crestfallen. “I just thought it’s something we could do together. Since we’re both related to her. I’ve never met any of you or Dad’s relatives, and Dad says I’m not allowed to meet his.” 

“It would go poorly,” Ren says, straightening against the doorframe as if prodded. 

“You’ve met Rae,” Hux says. “Your namesake.” He’s certain, because Ren confirmed it via Force sense, that Rae has realized by now that Roan was named in tribute to her. She’s never mentioned it and he’s sure that she never will, it wouldn’t be like her to boast that she’s caught on, but she says Roan’s name with a certain measure of pride that Hux has noticed during holo calls and particularly when she visited them on the ship two years previous. 

“Rae’s great,” Roan says. He interviewed her at length about Hux’s childhood during what was, for Hux, a somewhat excruciating lunch. “But she’s not a mystery like your mom.” 

“A mystery!” Hux shouldn’t be charmed by this, but perhaps that’s true of many things that have charmed him over the years. 

“You know what I mean. Like a history project. Our history.” 

“Let me think about it,” Hux says. He’s thought about it so much already, all his life, if he’s honest with himself. Where she is, if she’s thought of him even in passing, whether or not it could possibly matter after all this time. 

“Okay,” Roan says, nodding. “Yeah, think about it.” 

They both look at Ren. Roan is smiling and Hux supposes he probably looks queasy, but he’s not scared of the prospect of seeking out his mother, exactly. It’s just the pace of the past cycle, slapping all of them back and forth between one dramatic revelation to another. Hux feels jostled and jittery, exhausted but wide awake. 

“I’m gonna watch something,” Ren says. He gestures to the main sitting room, where their media projector lives. “I’ll never sleep.”

“Me either,” Roan says, bounding off the bed. “I’ll watch with you. Papa?”

His name for Hux rarely comes out like that anymore, rather than the ‘Pop’ that Hux doesn’t mind but has never quite gotten used to. Every time Hux hears _Papa_ he wants to clutch it to his chest like a gift, like Roan himself, proof that Roan still remembers what it was like to be his baby, to fit in his lap and roll gladly into his arms when Hux needed to cuddle up with him in the middle of the night after a bad dream about losing him.  

“Yes,” Hux says, sliding off the bed. “A holo film, something old that we haven’t watched in a long time. Don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Roan says. He doesn’t object when Hux tugs him close and kisses his cheek. Special circumstances, Hux supposes. He feels like they just lived through another day of the war, like they’re all unwilling to separate after huddling together for hours while cannon blasts shook their shelter. Hux pulls Ren against him when he reaches the doorway and kisses his cheek, too.  

Like the times when they cuddled up together in the dark during the war, safe as they could be between bombardments, Hux is sure more blasts will come. Everything just revealed will stay with them, will have consequences. There will be further battles to fight. Injuries sustained today will leave scars. But Hux feels stronger for having lived through it, leaning against Ren in the dark with the holo glowing down over them. Roan is sitting on the floor with his back to the sofa, his shoulder bumping Hux’s knee when he laughs at the film. Ren picked something light-hearted, old-fashioned and familiar. 

Hux falls asleep against Ren’s chest and wakes to the sound of Roan and Ren talking. Their voices are low so as not to wake him. The film has ended and the projector is still on, its home screen illuminating the room only softly. 

“Do you ever miss the glory?” Roan asks, whispering this question to Ren. 

Asking this, especially now, is so unlike him that Hux wonders if he’s dreaming. 

“Yeah,” Ren says. “That big rec center, mostly.” 

“With that climbing wall that had the waterfall feature! Yeah.”

Ah, the _Glory_. They’re talking about the ship, the home they once had. It’s United Republic property now. Hux wonders if Organa has strolled through it, if she touched its walls and tried to imagine her son living there. Perhaps she felt some lingering Force signature in the quarters where Ren laughed and held squirming toddler Roan over him, on his back in their bed with Hux beaming beside him, Roan giddy with the attention. Hux isn’t sure why he hopes Organa sensed this, if she walked through the _Glory_ at all: as revenge? Because it would have saddened her to know that Ren found happiness elsewhere? He often wonders what Organa would forgive, if Ren gave her the chance. 

When Hux sits up and rubs at his eyes Ren and Roan both go quiet, though they were only talking about the towering ceremonial atrium in the _Glory_ , how it had simulated the progress of daylight to nighttime so well. 

“What time is it?” Hux asks. 

“A little after 03:00,” Ren says. 

“Mhmm.” Hux rests his head on Ren’s chest again. Ren’s heartbeat is calm and steady, keeping pace in powerful thuds against Hux’s ear. Roan yawns, and Hux wants to tell him how perfect he is, but Roan protests when he hears that now, wrinkles his nose and tries to deny it. 

“You know what other place I liked?” Roan asks. His eyelids look heavy but he seems determined to stay awake. “Where we lived?”

“Where?” Ren asks. 

“Bixo-15, or whatever it was really called, I guess that was our code name? That crazy place with the apartments built into the mountainside.” 

Hux laughs. “That dump! Really? I don’t think I got a single full night’s sleep the whole time we were there. What did you like about it?”

“That vending droid with the candy. He didn’t have parental control protocol turned on and I would get so much candy from him, man, this one night I laid in bed giggling like an idiot just because I was eating so much of it after you guys went to sleep. It was like I had the best secret in the world.” 

“Oh, come on,” Hux says, laughing again. “We knew you were doing that. Your father can see into people’s minds, also through walls.” 

“Aw,” Roan says, like that spoils it, but he’s grinning. “Why’d you let me?”

“Because you needed a treat,” Ren says. “Something for yourself.” 

“I was against it,” Hux says. 

Roan cracks up at that. Possibly he’s delirious. He insists on another film, just one more, and Hux relents. In the morning they’ll all be so tired, cranky, back in the real world, left with difficult decisions. But Hux has already decided to find his mother. He’ll bring Roan with him. Ren, too. There is nothing he can’t face while the two of them are at his side. Even his own family, if his mother can be called that. He’ll find out soon. Whatever happens, he’ll have a place to run to in the aftermath: this place, where Roan hops up onto the sofa beside him and tugs on his arm to make sure he’s still awake. Where Ren kisses his temple just softly enough to not make a sound. 

The film starts, and Roan and Ren settle in around Hux. What exists outside this bubble is still frightening: the past, what comes next, all the uncertainty and enemies always circling around. But it’s not a bubble, really. It’s their fortress, and nothing has taken it down yet: not war, not ghosts, not even their own mistakes. 

_Remember this_ , Hux thinks. He rests his head against the back of the sofa, knowing he’ll fall asleep again before the opening credits finish rolling. _Remember this certainty that nothing can take them from you_. He sinks into an easy, floating sleep knowing that he won’t, at least not completely. He’ll doubt again someday, probably soon, that he can ever keep anything this sacred. No matter, though. Ren and Roan will be here to remind him what’s real.  

 

**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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> 
>  
> 
> So now I need to write an epilogue, probably from Roan's POV, about meeting up with Hux's mom, Omri and also Leia......... all things that were vaguely planned for this installment before their domestic angst went on for 20k lol. Thanks so much to all who have followed and supported this story!! It's been so much fun to write that of course I have epilogue plans.


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